1. The amount I work out is not constrained by willpower anymore, it is constrained by how much my body can handle and how much free time I have 2. The best workout game I found is “thrill of the fight”, I have some tips before you try it. Also, not everyone will like it 3. Trying a game for ~10 minutes isn’t enough to “get it”. Most games in VR aren’t polished enough, don’t have a good tutorial, it will take more time to decide if you like them 4. I wish someone would have told me this sooner 5. Still unclear: Can I build muscles using VR? So far seems promising, but I’m less certain about this part 6. I only have it for 2 weeks, so maybe you’ll think I’m going to grow out of it, but I don’t think so myself. It’s literally playing games
Yesterday I was feeling a bit bad (headache) but still tried to play as much as I can.
Avoid this failure mode:
I recommend not downloading games that are not workouts. I downloaded such a game and got addicted to it instead, spent a long time on it (it didn’t make me tired, so I could play for a long time), and I didn’t get the health benefits from it.
So I did end up getting a Quest 2 based on this advice.
The game, “Thrill of the Fight”, as you recommended, is exactly everything you say! It is fantastic for fitness and many other VR games seem promising.
Not exactly scientific, but my sense is that this is a general sentiment (maybe there’s some subgroup that doesn’t benefit and this is hard to see).
It’s not obvious you could get such fitness benefits from VR.
I think the information here is an incredible signal to noise, and really generous and transparent for you to share it.
Can you give a little more information on the games/apps you found problematic?
As you know, some games such as “Thrill of the Fight” are great exercise. Other games in this “healthy” class might include “Beat Saber” or “Pistol Whip”. These might provide great exercise too, but I’m unsure. Was the above one of the problematic games, or was it something else?
Also, have you tried “Supernatural” or other fitness apps?
This one is unusual: It’s price is a subscription ($10/month, w a free trial).
I like this because it gives the developers a strong incentive to keep me addicted for long.
I played it a few times (the FitXR boxing mode specifically) and I like it.
Intensity:
I’d rate the workout as “medium to hard” and I wouldn’t be surprised if it will become “as hard as I can take”
Problematic games
These were not fitness games, just some other non-fitness game that got me addicted. I assume that telling you its name would be a small info hazard because you’ll be curious to try it, but if you message me, I’ll give you the name
Interesting! How often and for how many hours per week do you work out now in VR (and how many hrs not in VR per week now)? And how often and for how many hours did you work out per week before?
Trying to answer your question: I estimate I do 30-60 minutes per day in VR, plus about 5 minutes without VR (doing TRX or pullups once in a while)
Before VR: There is a ton of variance. At good weeks I’d do 2-3 rollerblade trips per week (each is several hours) plus ~10 minutes per day of something like pullups (which is also something I can say more about) [I haven’t been in a “good week” for at least 3 months]
This questions seems a bit “wrong” because:
The intensity of the workout can be extremely high
2-3 minutes in this specific VR game were enough to get my brother extremely exhausted for about half a day
My activity tracker (Oura ring [note it is optimized for sleep tracking, not workout tracking]) rates many VR sessions as “exceeds the hight of our chart”, it is literally off the charts . Note this is higher than the hardest parts of rollerblade trips that I do with groups that are better than me and really like going up hills, followed by going up even more hills
My subjective experience matches this. I recognize when my body goes into extremely high pulse levels, and I can say more about sore muscles and so on
I am already able to do 3-5 rounds of this crazy game (3 minutes each), which would be unimaginable a few weeks ago
This means (A) I’m getting more fit, but also (B) the workouts are really short. I can currently tire myself out completely in about 15 minutes, which makes asking about “how much time I spend working out” like the wrong metric, I think
[Note you don’t have to play this crazy game, or you can play it more calmly, if all of this sounds too extreme. But to me it is exciting]
The only reason I’m not working out right now is in order to be productive. I literally need willpower in order to not-work-out, this is crazy. I’m saying this in case you’re trying to figure out if I’m ABLE to get enough sports out of VR
My setup is “oculus quest 2” (amazon link) (I have the 128GB version though it doesn’t seem like an important decision) with only the gear that comes out of the box, no need to even connect it to a computer.
I think I might get some extra items like a fancy head strap, but for now I’m using the default one and I’m pretty happy with it.
physical space: You need a room with space.
How much space: The game that requires most space that I saw so far is “thrill of the fight” which strongly recommends at least 1.5*2 meters (and I’d add a bit more in all directions to make sure you’re not too close to punching a wall by mistake).
Treadmill or something: I don’t use anything like that, but also remember that there is an element of personal fit here, some people like treadmills, I don’t.
I’d like to add a few more things:
If I were you, I’d consider this “a promising direction to explore” and not “problem solved”, because
I only have this for 2 weeks, I’m not an “expert”. (But I’d hope that my friends would recommend this to me without waiting to be “experts”, so here I am)
Lots of VR games are not polished, you might have to look for some that you like
This is an important mindset to keep in mind. As I like to say, “keep your expectations low and you’ll be positively surprised”
Does boxing in VR (“thrill of the fight”) sound like something you could potentially enjoy? This game is an outlier in how much of a good workout it is, as far as I can tell.
You could also try playing at a friend’s place for a few hours before buying (or if none have it, then you’ll find yourself showing it to them. :) )
You’ll have to spend some more money on games. Each game costs about $8 to $40
5. Still unclear: Can I build muscles using VR? So far seems promising, but I’m less certain about this part
Stronger By Science is my go-to for the technical & academic questions on muscle-building. I think they would probably say no to building muscles with VR. They would still think working out using VR is a good idea though, if: 1) it helped you build an exercise habit; 2) you develop proficiency with specific movements ; and, 3) you become more body aware—all without getting injured. This is always a huge problem in the gym, especially for new people—there’s a lot of learning the hard way and the resulting injuries set people back sometimes months or years.
Configure the game (the “guardian”) to keep some space from things like walls, so you won’t punch them by accident
Don’t straighten your elbow completely when you punch (keep it a bit bent), otherwise you might damage it in real life
For the same reason, don’t do strange bad things with your posture, such as bending your spine sideways
Generally bad pain is bad, you know.
I can say more about this if it would help
End your first round early, maybe
Consider doing the first round for only 20 seconds or so to avoid becoming overly exhausted without noticing (this has happened to one person I saw).
How to stop?
You can just take your headset off. If you’re like me, you’re totally going to forget this, but you can.
You can also “hug” your opponent for ~5 seconds to end the fight.
Tips that would appear in a Tutorial, if it would exist, I think
Consider skipping this if you want to investigate the game’s mechanics completely by yourself, hpmor style, but here goes:
I’d start by fighting the “dummy”. You can see your stats on the right of the dummy, including how much damage your last punch did. Then go to “fight”
The game cares a lot about how strong you punch
Many punches you do will be too weak and do 0 damage
To see how much damage you did, check the color the punch when it hits (you’ll see)
blue = zero damage
yellow = nice damage
red = a ton of damage
You can doge, including by ducking (great workout if you ask me)
You can block. If your opponent’s punch hits your glove before it hits you, it will do zero damage to you
Professional boxers on Youtube say that this game is reasonably realistic (even if not perfect), I’d take that as a prior for most uncertainties that I have (mainly around what technique to use)
Consider starting at “easy”
There are even more tips in Youtube tutorials, but I would personally prefer to only be told about the ones I wrote here before I started playing
Is the game scary?
My brain was all like “omg this person is coming to hit us! nooo!!”
I fixed this by doing one round where I let the opponent hit me as much as he wanted, and my brain was indeed surprised that nothing bad happened in real life, but then it let me play
This is the most polished everyone-likes-it game as far as I can tell.
The harder difficulties are not only cognitively harder, they are also better workouts.
I recommend starting from the tutorial (and if you show the game to anyone: Don’t explain it to them, just show them the Tutorial)
Intensity: I rate it as “medium workout”
Pistol Whip
Similar to Beat Saber, but with guns (and less overall polished).
As most games, it doesn’t have a reasonably good tutorial (though I’d do what it has (nobody understands the “armor”, don’t worry)), and if a friend would start playing it, I’d give them a few pointers. Tell me if you want those
Working out using VR really works
1. The amount I work out is not constrained by willpower anymore, it is constrained by how much my body can handle and how much free time I have
2. The best workout game I found is “thrill of the fight”, I have some tips before you try it. Also, not everyone will like it
3. Trying a game for ~10 minutes isn’t enough to “get it”. Most games in VR aren’t polished enough, don’t have a good tutorial, it will take more time to decide if you like them
4. I wish someone would have told me this sooner
5. Still unclear: Can I build muscles using VR? So far seems promising, but I’m less certain about this part
6. I only have it for 2 weeks, so maybe you’ll think I’m going to grow out of it, but I don’t think so myself. It’s literally playing games
AMA
Update: Still addicted.
Yesterday I was feeling a bit bad (headache) but still tried to play as much as I can.
Avoid this failure mode:
I recommend not downloading games that are not workouts. I downloaded such a game and got addicted to it instead, spent a long time on it (it didn’t make me tired, so I could play for a long time), and I didn’t get the health benefits from it.
(Why doesn’t anyone give this warning?)
So I did end up getting a Quest 2 based on this advice.
The game, “Thrill of the Fight”, as you recommended, is exactly everything you say! It is fantastic for fitness and many other VR games seem promising.
Not exactly scientific, but my sense is that this is a general sentiment (maybe there’s some subgroup that doesn’t benefit and this is hard to see).
It’s not obvious you could get such fitness benefits from VR.
I think the information here is an incredible signal to noise, and really generous and transparent for you to share it.
Off topic, but Ian Fitz, the dev who built “Thrill of the Fight” seems like a great guy.
He is focused on a great product and seems to embody a lot of virtues (transparency, technical detail, being present in their community).
Here’s some tidbits from him:
Controller physics and limitations (interesting technical detail)
Game scaling mechanics
The “official guide”
At least in my limited experience, this is an huge amount of engagement and attention to detail.
Can you give a little more information on the games/apps you found problematic?
As you know, some games such as “Thrill of the Fight” are great exercise. Other games in this “healthy” class might include “Beat Saber” or “Pistol Whip”. These might provide great exercise too, but I’m unsure. Was the above one of the problematic games, or was it something else?
Also, have you tried “Supernatural” or other fitness apps?
Beat Saber & Pistol Whip:
See here.
FitXR
This one is unusual: It’s price is a subscription ($10/month, w a free trial).
I like this because it gives the developers a strong incentive to keep me addicted for long.
I played it a few times (the FitXR boxing mode specifically) and I like it.
Intensity:
I’d rate the workout as “medium to hard” and I wouldn’t be surprised if it will become “as hard as I can take”
Problematic games
These were not fitness games, just some other non-fitness game that got me addicted. I assume that telling you its name would be a small info hazard because you’ll be curious to try it, but if you message me, I’ll give you the name
Supernatural
Didn’t try it
Interesting! How often and for how many hours per week do you work out now in VR (and how many hrs not in VR per week now)? And how often and for how many hours did you work out per week before?
Trying to answer your question: I estimate I do 30-60 minutes per day in VR, plus about 5 minutes without VR (doing TRX or pullups once in a while)
Before VR: There is a ton of variance. At good weeks I’d do 2-3 rollerblade trips per week (each is several hours) plus ~10 minutes per day of something like pullups (which is also something I can say more about) [I haven’t been in a “good week” for at least 3 months]
This questions seems a bit “wrong” because:
The intensity of the workout can be extremely high
2-3 minutes in this specific VR game were enough to get my brother extremely exhausted for about half a day
My activity tracker (Oura ring [note it is optimized for sleep tracking, not workout tracking]) rates many VR sessions as “exceeds the hight of our chart”, it is literally off the charts . Note this is higher than the hardest parts of rollerblade trips that I do with groups that are better than me and really like going up hills, followed by going up even more hills
My subjective experience matches this. I recognize when my body goes into extremely high pulse levels, and I can say more about sore muscles and so on
I am already able to do 3-5 rounds of this crazy game (3 minutes each), which would be unimaginable a few weeks ago
This means (A) I’m getting more fit, but also (B) the workouts are really short. I can currently tire myself out completely in about 15 minutes, which makes asking about “how much time I spend working out” like the wrong metric, I think
[Note you don’t have to play this crazy game, or you can play it more calmly, if all of this sounds too extreme. But to me it is exciting]
The only reason I’m not working out right now is in order to be productive. I literally need willpower in order to not-work-out, this is crazy. I’m saying this in case you’re trying to figure out if I’m ABLE to get enough sports out of VR
Thanks for the info! Yeah intensities of workouts matter too.
This is really compelling.
I’m pretty sold, more than from any product ad I can think of! (also thinking $FB might be undervalued?)
Can you elaborate a bit more (in a few sentences) on the setup, e.g:
What headset or specific electronic gear do you use or recommend?
How much computing power is needed?
What physical space or equipment do you need (can you do it in an empty room or do you need a treadmill or something)?
My setup is “oculus quest 2” (amazon link) (I have the 128GB version though it doesn’t seem like an important decision) with only the gear that comes out of the box, no need to even connect it to a computer.
I think I might get some extra items like a fancy head strap, but for now I’m using the default one and I’m pretty happy with it.
physical space: You need a room with space.
How much space: The game that requires most space that I saw so far is “thrill of the fight” which strongly recommends at least 1.5*2 meters (and I’d add a bit more in all directions to make sure you’re not too close to punching a wall by mistake).
Treadmill or something: I don’t use anything like that, but also remember that there is an element of personal fit here, some people like treadmills, I don’t.
I’d like to add a few more things:
If I were you, I’d consider this “a promising direction to explore” and not “problem solved”, because
I only have this for 2 weeks, I’m not an “expert”. (But I’d hope that my friends would recommend this to me without waiting to be “experts”, so here I am)
Lots of VR games are not polished, you might have to look for some that you like
This is an important mindset to keep in mind. As I like to say, “keep your expectations low and you’ll be positively surprised”
Does boxing in VR (“thrill of the fight”) sound like something you could potentially enjoy? This game is an outlier in how much of a good workout it is, as far as I can tell.
You could also try playing at a friend’s place for a few hours before buying (or if none have it, then you’ll find yourself showing it to them. :) )
You’ll have to spend some more money on games. Each game costs about $8 to $40
For reviews, my friend recommends: https://uploadvr.com/
A Telegram bot to tell you when game prices drop: https://t.me/questStoreWatch
I recommend buying a few games at full price of course
I’m pretty happy this is useful to someone, feel free to ask things. :)
Thanks! This is really informative.
Stronger By Science is my go-to for the technical & academic questions on muscle-building. I think they would probably say no to building muscles with VR. They would still think working out using VR is a good idea though, if: 1) it helped you build an exercise habit; 2) you develop proficiency with specific movements ; and, 3) you become more body aware—all without getting injured. This is always a huge problem in the gym, especially for new people—there’s a lot of learning the hard way and the resulting injuries set people back sometimes months or years.
Here’s their summary on strength-training:
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/complete-strength-training-guide/
Thank you very much! Even just having a go-to for this topic is helpful for me
What are your tips?
Tips for Thrill Of The Fight
Safety
Configure the game (the “guardian”) to keep some space from things like walls, so you won’t punch them by accident
Don’t straighten your elbow completely when you punch (keep it a bit bent), otherwise you might damage it in real life
For the same reason, don’t do strange bad things with your posture, such as bending your spine sideways
Generally bad pain is bad, you know.
I can say more about this if it would help
End your first round early, maybe
Consider doing the first round for only 20 seconds or so to avoid becoming overly exhausted without noticing (this has happened to one person I saw).
How to stop?
You can just take your headset off. If you’re like me, you’re totally going to forget this, but you can.
You can also “hug” your opponent for ~5 seconds to end the fight.
Tips that would appear in a Tutorial, if it would exist, I think
Consider skipping this if you want to investigate the game’s mechanics completely by yourself, hpmor style, but here goes:
I’d start by fighting the “dummy”. You can see your stats on the right of the dummy, including how much damage your last punch did. Then go to “fight”
The game cares a lot about how strong you punch
Many punches you do will be too weak and do 0 damage
To see how much damage you did, check the color the punch when it hits (you’ll see)
blue = zero damage
yellow = nice damage
red = a ton of damage
You can doge, including by ducking (great workout if you ask me)
You can block. If your opponent’s punch hits your glove before it hits you, it will do zero damage to you
Professional boxers on Youtube say that this game is reasonably realistic (even if not perfect), I’d take that as a prior for most uncertainties that I have (mainly around what technique to use)
Consider starting at “easy”
There are even more tips in Youtube tutorials, but I would personally prefer to only be told about the ones I wrote here before I started playing
Is the game scary?
My brain was all like “omg this person is coming to hit us! nooo!!”
I fixed this by doing one round where I let the opponent hit me as much as he wanted, and my brain was indeed surprised that nothing bad happened in real life, but then it let me play
Other recommendations for games for workouts
Beat Saber
This is the most polished everyone-likes-it game as far as I can tell.
The harder difficulties are not only cognitively harder, they are also better workouts.
I recommend starting from the tutorial (and if you show the game to anyone: Don’t explain it to them, just show them the Tutorial)
Intensity: I rate it as “medium workout”
Pistol Whip
Similar to Beat Saber, but with guns (and less overall polished).
As most games, it doesn’t have a reasonably good tutorial (though I’d do what it has (nobody understands the “armor”, don’t worry)), and if a friend would start playing it, I’d give them a few pointers. Tell me if you want those
Intensity: I rate it as “medium workout”
See external recommendations
Like this one:
https://uploadvr.com/best-quest-2-fitness-exercise-apps/
I haven’t tried almost any of them