Black box VR
It is approaching the end of January and no doubt many readers have already failed their resolutions to go to the gym more. The problem with regular exercise is that it can become monotonous and repetitive, leading to poor results and an inclination to walk. Virtual reality exercise has always been a holy grail of workouts and offers an immersive world where you are continuously busy and burning those calories. But the VR practice experiences available have generally been available to a select few – people who can afford the systems and peripherals in their own homes. For example my VirZoom bike fitness experience that I tried last year.
The special thing about Black Box VR is that it inserts the fitness element into a real fitness environment. Not only are you training DDR-ing (Audioshield style) to work up a sweat, you’re actually targeting specific muscles with weight and resistance exercises.
The first Black Box VR gym opens in San Francisco this year. Think of it as a cross between SoulCycle and HTC Vive headsets. The demo was shown at CES 2018, with attendees standing in an 8 x 8 foot black box (hence the name) wearing a headset and motion tracking wristbands. Let the games begin. Examples shown included dealing with enemies ranging from x to magical creatures. To throw weapons (including meteors!), Do chest presses while standing – which can increase the tension to really feel the burn. That’s a lot of iteration – but the concept is that it doesn’t feel like it. Since the HTC Vive Tracker allows for more motion sensitivity, it is quite likely that leg straps and buttocks and legwork will be added in future iterations.
The story of Black Box VR also gives it that extra shot of authority. Co-founded by Ryan DeLuca and Preston Lewis, the former founders and creative director of Bodybuilding.com, venture into the world of immersive workouts. “ÖA key differentiator is our patent-pending dynamic resistance machine, which is specifically designed to provide real resistance in a virtual environment. Nobody in the market offers a real resistance equivalent to an immersive virtual sport like us, “said Lewis in a press release.” The dynamic resistance machine is mapped in the virtual environment. So when you reach for a virtual handle, you can actually grab the handle in the real world. You can feel it. “
Certainly this isn’t the first gym to incorporate virtual reality into its surroundings – since its inception, the VirZOOM bike is now being used in YMCA and Life fitness locations across America and Singapore, and on devices like the Holodia bike and the Icaros Aircraft are slowly entering selected gyms.
According to the The San Francisco-based Virtual Reality Institute of Health and Exercise burns an average of 6.8 calories per minute on games like Audioshield (see above) with typical low-intensity gameplay. That’s at least 152,781,628 calories in this one game alone. The institute’s goals are to “help provide concrete, objective data for the discussion of video games as a source of healthy physical activity” – and while Black Box VR has no rating yet, if they make a decision it will certainly affect how that People perceive the company.
I’m not the only one enthusiastic about this, because the startup also won the “Best Startup Award” at CES 2018 this year. “It’s a full-body workout that includes science-based routines that combine resistance training and high-intensity cardio training. The game can be a you-versus-you experience or a competitive experience against another player, or both, ”said Lewis. Crossing your fingers for the gameplay – and the training – will be as good as it sounds when the first San Francisco location opens this year.
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