Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

nathanlippi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 275 posts

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#151

Post by zfnmxt »

microjim wrote: post #149
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this matters if you find exercise and training of this sort so mind-numbingly boring that you active avoid the it due to hate of activity. You might try your best to convince me that it is fun, but I whole-heartedly disagree. It is repetitive boredom, about as fun as housework and maybe worse (which is why I keep a messy house). I'll be physically weak and happy instead and continue to put concepts into my mi…

For that, you'd need to be convinced that exercise/strength training results in better health outcomes long term, and that better health outcomes are an important factor in emotional wellbeing. Supposing that, it is safe to acknowledge that particular behaviour can be created by building reward circuits and overcoming initial aversion common when building any habit.

> For that, you'd need to be convinced that exercise/strength training results in better health outcomes long term, and that better health outcomes are an important factor in emotional wellbeing.

On top of this, being physically fit generally results in increased longevity, giving you more total time to enjoy the things you do enjoy. (And enjoy them in a physically superior state.)

> Supposing that, it is safe to acknowledge that particular behaviour can be created by building reward circuits and overcoming initial aversion common when building any habit.

I think humans have a surprising capacity to learn to enjoy things (or, at least, tolerate) and that sticking with something is largely a question of overcoming an initial "enjoyment" curve. Besides, why does everything need to be enjoyable or stimulating? There is certainly value in a lack of stimulation.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#152

Post by hackernewds »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #17

One thing that’s good to point out to anybody looking to get into VR for fitness is that Beat Saber becomes radically more challenging when playing custom community-made maps instead of the stock/DLC maps. The higher difficulty community maps require a lot of speed, precision, and stamina, and I’m only beginning to be able to play them decently after a few months of practice. It’s almost an entirely different game. U…

how do you download these custom DLCs for the Oculus?

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#153

Post by zfnmxt »

tifadg1 wrote: post #143
zfnmxt wrote: post #120

VR exercise is a remarkably poor allocation of time (if your interest is physical fitness, efficiently). It also leaves out the most important adaptation of all: strength. Effective training (not exercising) requires a progression model. That is, on some time frame you must exceed your performance at the end of that time frame when compared to the beginning of the time frame. This must be done in some measurable way-…

On the offchance you're not trolling, these are quite the outdated views you're holding. It's fine to muck around doing 120kg squats if that's your thing, but you're continuously putting yourself to increased risk of injury as the years go by and you're increasing weight. To mitigate that risk you then have to start doing additional warm up, foam rolls, recovery routines. Oh and lets not forget that most people can't…

> To mitigate that risk you then have to start doing additional warm up, foam rolls, recovery routines

How do you know that any of this is effective?

> Oh and lets not forget that most people can't even do squat properly, so add static stretching too.

If you don't squat correctly, you need to do static stretching to ameliorate it? What?

> It's fine to muck around doing 120kg squats if that's your thing, but you're continuously putting yourself to increased risk of injury as the years go by and you're increasing weight.

Being strong decreases risk of injury and death. We're not talking about becoming competitive weightlifters or powerlifters here, we're talking about becoming decently strong. To become strong, you must learn to execute the lifts with sufficiently good technique to not injure yourself. If you can read a book and think somewhat critically (so, hopefully, the entire Hacker News readership) you can learn to execute the lifts correctly.

Would you have the same defeatist attitude if I was talking about joining a recreational soccer team, where injury rates are literally magnitudes higher than in the weight room?

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#154

Post by zfnmxt »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #132
wingerlang wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I underestimate it, just in case someone is coming here and thinking that VR is a good way to bulk up their arms, I'm just saying that it won't compare to even the minimum of using dumbbells.

I'm just saying that it won't compare to even the minimum of using dumbbells. Using dumbbells is the main thing here: It doesn't matter if dumbbells do better if it simply isn't an activity you keep up long term. Daily VR is going to be more meaningful and develop more muscle over time than sporadic dumbbell use. And lets be honest, realistically this is what we are comparing. Fun activity with side effects to an exe…

The fallacy everyone is making here is believing that consistency trumps all else. But it doesn't if you're consistently subjecting yourself to a stress which does not result in any new adaptations--then there will be no change.

An oft repeated example of this fallacy is in the case of tanning. If you go out into the sun for 20 minutes and get a tan, what will happen if you continue to go out in the sun for 20 minutes each day? Will you get more tan? No. You've already adapted to the stress (ultraviolet light exposure for 20 minutes) and so the continued daily stress of 20 minutes of sunlight will not result in any new adaptations.

That is why if you are completely untrained, sure, VR constitutes a sufficient disruption to homeostasis that you'll get some muscular adaptations. But the stress is so minimal (and you cannot effectively increase it) that you will quickly adapt to it and subsequent exposure to the stress in the future will not result in any adaptations, it will only maintain what little adaptation you already have.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#155

Post by zfnmxt »

Kiro wrote: post #126
zfnmxt wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually started bulking up in my upper arms for the first time in my life. No you didn't, unless you were completely and utterly detrained (i.e., previously bedridden or something) and even then, the stimulus would've only resulted in adaptation for a short period. VR exercise is far too submaximal (in regards to strength) to result in meaningful strength adaptations past a short initial adaptation period.

I also build muscles in VR training and I've done a lot of stronglift so I know what progression is like. Pistol Whip is great for building leg muscles. Imagine doing that one more squat you didn't think you had in you when in the squat rack. In Pistol Whip you do that 20 times without noticing. You don't need progressive overload to build muscles. High rep sets should not be underestimated.

The lower body musculature is too large to be effectively stressed by bodyweight exercise in people fostering any decent level of fitness, i.e., bodyweight squats don't make you stronger.

Just because an exercise is hard or makes you sore doesn't mean it's effective.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#156

Post by [deleted] »

blensor wrote: post #92
dinkleberg wrote: post #51

Forgive my ignorance, but I always see the quest mentioned. Are there any comparable devices that don’t require Facebook? I’ve sworn off FB and while VR for cardio has me intrigued, nothing is gonna get me to sign back in there.

Pico Neo 3 IQ Q3 (still in development) HTC Vive Focus Lynx R1 ( still in development ) Oculus Quest using Oculess to remove FB ( or just ask Meta support to unlink your headset from your account )

[deleted]

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#157

Post by philjohn »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #37
kitsunesoba wrote: post #17

One thing that’s good to point out to anybody looking to get into VR for fitness is that Beat Saber becomes radically more challenging when playing custom community-made maps instead of the stock/DLC maps. The higher difficulty community maps require a lot of speed, precision, and stamina, and I’m only beginning to be able to play them decently after a few months of practice. It’s almost an entirely different game. U…

Where's the best way to get started with these community mods. I have: 1. A Quest 2 2. A PC with an RTX 20XX graphics card (usually running Linux, but can boot into Windows 10) and USB C port 3. Beat Saber (standalone version) I guess I need: 4. A long USB C cable (or the official one)? 5. Beat Saber for PC (best to buy on Oculus or Steam?) 6. Some instructions for finding, installing and using these community mods.…

I started with the official cable, but honestly, it's not teenager proof and it's expensive to replace when the USB-C connector on the end is ripped out vigorously.

I'm now using an active booster one from Amazon that was about £20.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#158

Post by empiricus »

westoncb wrote: post #111
invalidator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm several months into using Beat Saber as an exercise routine. Yes, add-on maps are a necessity, not just for the challenge, but also to keep things interesting. I don't find high difficulty levels to be great exercise. I can keep up fine, but I get lulled into using little wrist flicks instead of sweeping arcs. The best tracks for me are ones which aren't technically challenging. Instead, I get my whole body into…

> The best tracks for me are ones which aren't technically challenging. Instead, I get my whole body into it - dancing the whole time, stepping to the side so I can take a wide swing, shakin' my butt to the groove... Exactly. Once I could beat everything on expert I ended up losing interesting because expert+ felt like a different game: seemed much more wrist-oriented, which I have zero interest in. I'd like to find…

I actually prefer expert+ for movement, the cubes are more widely distributed in space and you need to make wider moves. For expert there are many cubes, but too grouped together. But probably depends also on the maps you choose. Anyway, for me only the expert+ maps are fun and challenging physically.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#159

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

> I wake up at 5:30, and do some deep work; at 7:15 an alarm goes off, which reminds me to fire up my Oculus Quest and start my VR workout.

Not being bad about it, but if you find a gym that's open at 5:30 it's going to be pretty empty, that's if COVID worries are keeping the OP out of these environments.

> I clear out my workout space and make sure my cats aren't in the main play area.

No wife and kids huh? I don't think it's going to scale to having a couple of toddlers running about when you're plugged in and jumping about the place blindly.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#160

Post by philjohn »

sli wrote: post #33
CoastalCoder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've really enjoyed "Until you Fall" on the Index. Most first-person VR games (including Half-life Alex) make me motion-sick. But for some reason that doesn't happen with Until you Fall. I really hope they make a sequel or similar game.

Most people can grind through motion sickness. If you're willing to deal with feeling queasy for a night or two, it's worth the effort. I wasn't able to handle continuous motion in VR until I decided to just play through Boneworks repeatedly until I could handle it. Ended up only taking about 20 minutes and I've been good ever since.

Same with Sim Racing in VR for me - the trick is small repeated exposure I found.

After a couple of days it was absolutely fine and I do 1 hour+ races in VR in iRacing without any issues - although the karussell at the Nordschleife still makes me a tiny bit dizzy for a split second.

Post reply on HN