Confessions of a Virtual Reality Gym Rat
The workouts are real, even if the impossibly beautiful scenery is not.
This year has created a lot of reluctant converts. Months ago, in less dire circumstances, we swore we’d never do any number of strange-sounding things: attend Zoom weddings, embrace ring lights, feed a sourdough starter. And yet here we are, making do.
Which is how I ended up spending the last few months using — and getting mildly addicted to — a virtual reality fitness app called Supernatural.
Fitness and V.R. might seem like an unlikely pair. And I was skeptical at first. (Isn’t the entire point of V.R. that you can explore far-flung places and bend the laws of physics without leaving your sofa?)
But when I heard that people were working out in V.R., I decided to try it. I was missing the gym, my go-to YouTube workouts were getting stale, and a Peloton seemed destined to end up as an expensive coat rack. So I got out my Oculus Quest, downloaded Supernatural and got to work.
