VR Health with Oculus Quest 2 Gave Me Gaming With out the Guilt

Before the pandemic, the gym was always a part of my weekly routine. When the world went looking for toilet paper amid the first COVID-19 lockdowns last year, I picked myself up to look like a home gym. I wasn’t alone. Exercise rats, fleeing their sweaty ships, caused a nationwide shortage of yoga mats, dumbbells, exercise bands and other exercise equipment with corresponding prices.

I found it hard to endure almost five times my gym membership every month just to get a decent set of dumbbells. So I tried Peloton (essentially a streaming spin class), Hydrow (a new take on the tried and true rowing machine), and Tonal (go-go gadget wall-mounted gym), but they all had the same flaw: expensive specialty equipment. Not to mention that most of them were backordered and had longer delivery times.

Chris Raymond / Digital Trends

What I didn’t realize at first was that I already had everything I needed. Over the past year, the same VR hardware I bought to counteract boredom also brought me to a whole new, addicting way of training.

Here’s what I’ve learned along the way, and what to look out for if you want to create your own VR fitness setup.

Play without the guilt

As a lifelong gamer, I took the plunge into VR at the start of the pandemic to cope with the newly discovered time at home. After wandering Valve’s The Lab for nearly 100 hours and fully completing Half-Life: Alyx, I felt a twinge of guilt as I remembered my mom berating me for playing outside as a kid.

Staring at a screen all day wasn’t the best for me, and I knew it. Shame did little to stop me from my hobby, but when I raised a two-handed claymore over my head in Blade and Sorcery before slamming it on a fully clad knight, I realized I was actually working up a sweat. In fact, I burned more calories in a techno bowling alley and worked on my opponent’s ribs in Thrill of the Fight than in my carefully crafted interval workouts.

VR has a way to shake up the monotony of home training.

So I looked for more. There are a surprising number of simple games that will make your heart beat faster, and if you don’t want to spend all of your workouts in VR, there are plenty of games out there that make a great cardio-based addition to a home workout. Sprint Vector, Until You Fall, and Pistol Whip are great options that focus on gameplay but inadvertently break a sweat.

VR has a way to shake up the monotony of home training as you squat on an alien planet, sprint through Neo Tokyo, or knock your opponent to the ground after a grueling four-minute fight in the ring, thousands of fans cheer for you. There is something special about being immersed in a new world every time you have to sweat, and I loved the lack of predictability that I once appreciated about my daily fitness regimen.

Finding the best VR fitness hardware

Even after I got used to VR workouts, I got frustrated tripping over wires, hitting walls, and pouring sweat into my expensive HTC Vive Pro. My headset was damaged from my intensive physical use and I had to fix it more than once. I loved my Vive for anything gaming related but decided to go for a VR rig dedicated to fitness.

Quest Eye VR headsetChris Raymond / Digital Trends

Of course, Instagram read my mind and quickly started delivering me ads for the Oculus Quest 2. I had initially despised the Quest for its trust in Facebook, but after a few hours of reading, I made the impulse buy and hid the evidence from my wife.

After playing with the Quest UI for several hours, changing my hometown to a spaceship, and setting my preferences, I was shocked at how good the Quest looked and felt compared to the Vive Pro. The device felt almost as high quality and the display looked just as good. The only area that felt cheaper was the straps on the back of the headset which I quickly converted to the one Elite Strap, designed by Oculus for $ 49.

Vive VR headsetChris Raymond / Digital Trends

I bought Thrill of The Fight new because I really wanted to experience it wirelessly. It looked just as good to my eyes as it did in the Vive, except for a distinctly chunky looking crowd of fans on the ring. No appearance change, no delay, and no removed features. If you’re willing to rule out AAA games with Quest 2’s standalone OS, I don’t think you’ll see much of a difference between the quality of the headset.

Find the best VR fitness app

I was standing in my living room navigating the Oculus store front when I came across it. The $ 19 monthly subscription made me pause, but I was thrilled to find a premium fitness app that might offer more than the games I used. It even came with a dedicated app and social network that you could use to keep track of your progress and heart rate using a smartwatch.

Chris Raymond / Digital Trends

From my first workout, I knew this was way beyond any fitness game I have ever played. As a player, you will be guided by real trainers in a 3D experience on all topics, from warming up to shape, stretching methods and breathing. The game itself resembles a mix of Beat Saber and Box VR in which you hold two futuristic-looking baseball bats that hit appropriate directional balls.

In addition to musically motivated upper body training, you constantly crouch down or do a directional lunge to fit through tron-like 3D triangles that materialize through portals and shoot at you. You can choose the training via trainer, intensity, music genre or duration.

Chris Raymond / Digital Trends

I’ll admit, with my previous VR practice experience, I thought I could jump to the difficulty level right away. I was wrong. Like Halo Legendary wrong. The first couple of workouts got me to the point where I needed to stop and wipe the sweat off my Oculus. Fortunately, Supernatural includes a free rubber headset insert that improves hygiene a bit.

Unmotivated? Try VR fitness

Everyone has different fitness goals, whether they’re losing weight, building muscle or just looking better in a swimsuit. After hundreds of hours of putting together what works best for me, I can confidently say that a VR fitness routine can help you with any of these goals.

It can’t completely replace the gym in your life, but it will definitely help keep your stamina, core, and fat percentage from creeping up after the vacation. Some people may find VR the perfect 1: 1 replacement, but I’ve found a balance between minimal home fitness equipment and VR is the best option for me.

The experience is still new enough that it all feels like science fiction.

Even months after starting this trip, I get excited every time I turn on my headset. The experience is still new enough that it all feels like science fiction. If you’ve gambled in the past, you may even be forced to push yourself harder in VR than in a gym. The game mechanics, which are buried deep in your subconscious, are activated in a way that treats this more like a fantasy than a chore.

Can I afford VR fitness?

As a novelty, VR looks expensive. As a gym replacement, it’s a screaming deal. There is currently an Oculus Quest 2 Selling for $ 299 at the most underrated video game retailer on Wall Street. When you add the $ 228 annual subscription to Supernatural, you can have a year of fitness for less than $ 500.

Compare that to Pelotonwhich starts at $ 1,895 for the bike and $ 39 per month, Hydrow at $ 1,995 and $ 38 per month or Tonal at $ 2,995 for a $ 250 and $ 49 a month installation. Sure, you won’t get the biking, rowing, or strength training from VR, but with the money left over, you could buy a bike, boat, or some free weights to supplement it.

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