God Help Me, I’m Going Back To VR Fitness Me

I’d love this to be some sort of New Year’s Resolution type piece, but I began going back to VR fitness games at the beginning of December because my t-shirts started to fit like a small rubber band barely holding a giant stack of papers. Logos have been stretched to the extent that they may or may not spell a word. While I have a gym membership and live pretty close to one of the most famous parks in the world, I am terrible at moving my body when there isn’t some sort of free item at the end of it. So I find myself turning to virtual reality fitness games… again.

What’s weird is this has worked before. During the pandemic – that time when everyone was skating on swell feelings and good vibes – I lost about 30 pounds. Some of this was from pure stress and panic, but a lot of it came from the fact that my way to relieve said stress was working out in virtual reality. This could include games like Beat Saber, sure, but areas like the training gym in Creed: Rise to Glory felt like fake places where I could do some cardio and take a break and breathe a little bit. Either way, I actually created a healthy and successful exercise routine that was 75 percent putting weights on my arms and ankles and doing little punches and kicks and squats. Not a balanced routine, but one that worked.

New Habits Die Quickly

And then the world opened back up and people got busy. I was bored of staying inside and, during that time, going outside felt like I had to maintain the situational awareness of a Cold War spy passing on nuclear secrets. I was ready to live an actual life again. My exercise routine fell by the wayside. I signed up for a fancy gym eventually, but that fancy gym is just far enough to be avoided. That wasn’t the original plan, but it’s certainly how things turned out! Ah, man! It’s too cold to go to the gym. It’s too hot to go to the gym. I just had lunch. I’m too hungry.

So, in an effort to become more comfortable in my body, I’ve returned to the thing that’s worked best over the years: video games. Going into college, I weighed more than I ever have in my life. I weighed much, much more in high school than I do now. Between my freshman and sophomore years of school, I spent two or three hours on a treadmill every day using my Wavebird controller to play GBA Castlevania games on the GameCube. That worked. I fell off the machine a lot – and I still fall off the machines a lot – but regardless, video games have seemed to be the key to get me to be less… worrying to doctors during annual checkups.

Fortunately, doing virtual reality fitness is actually a thousand times easier than it was just a few years ago. Full-color passthrough alone has made it simpler to take breaks, check my phone if it rings, and use the bathroom while contemplating the wisdom of wearing an advanced piece of technology while I pee. I know this seems gross, and it is, but I’ll tell you what’s grosser: taking off the headset for five minutes and, when putting it back on, feeling just how much sweat you’ve left behind. At least here I can stay inside the virtual world until my thighs hurt from ducking flying objects or whatever.

There are also, blessedly, far more games that involve exercising. I like Beat Saber, don’t get me wrong, but there was a point when it was a lot of Beat Saber and a few programs specifically made for exercising. These programs still exist, although they love to change up their names and financial model every three months so there’s a completely different confusing way to pay for routines. Per exercise? Subscriptions? Ads? Who knows anymore! Seriously, there was a great program called BOX VR that weirdly got renamed FIT XR and decided the best way to make working out more fun was to add a dozen slow-moving, useless menus focused on juicing you to drop money on extra features. It was a decent program when I wanted a quick workout, but now it’s fantastic for wasting time scrolling through menus.

VR Fitness Keeps Getting Better

That said, some of the exercise-centric games have become better. I got a chance to play an early build of Exercise Your Demons, whose title is pretty self-explanatory. It doesn’t play that differently than many exercise games (punch, duck, punch), but the onslaught of enemies, changing levels, and collectibles at least adds a more gamified element. I don’t mean that fake ass “YOU DID GREAT! A+” gamifying that’s more of a report card. Actual game things.

And, thankfully, Exercise Your Demons is fun and joyful. Outside of Creed, it feels like most VR fitness apps are trying to replicate the feeling of a meditation spa. Which is cool! It’s nice to feel coddled! But I liked having cartoon characters cheer me on while I was punching cartoon bad guys and quickly ducking to avoid cartoon demon bats. The silliness and arcade feel makes it move faster than a calm voice telling me “You’re doing great, just 30 minutes of boredom to go!”

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Maybe that’s why it’s been easy to get back into a fitness routine that helped get me through one of the worst periods of this century. Yeah, a lot of them are still music games. But Samba de Amigo plays a lot different than Beat Saber which plays a lot different than Maestro – all of which I use and swap between. I’ve been playing a lot more Pistol Whip and I swear to God, my legs are beginning to feel like tree trunks. Switching to the PS VR2, Kayak VR: The Mirage forces me to hold out my arms and gently swing them for extended periods, giving me the illusion of exploring a beautiful coast. With a few extra weights and a little imagination, it goes a long way.

I’m not saying virtual reality can or will be the central key to better health. I’ve been down this path before. I’ve written about fighting my body issues with games, which feels like fighting your mouse issues with cheese. Or fighting your body issues with cheese. Not important. I know that, in addition to cardio, lifting weights and using other parts of your body are vital, too. I agree with that! And, of course, of course, I’m sure I’ll get right on it. But I’m glad I’ve got this headset to put me back on some sort of path. The fact it’s fun, the fact that nobody can see you, and the fact I can feel like I need to exercise and then immediately workout without preparation has helped. It won’t change everything, but maybe it’s a start. Or, you know, a restart of a restart of a restart.

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