Standalone Virtual Reality (VR) headsets such as the Meta Quest 2, Quest Pro and the new Quest 3 can provide a variety of challenging and absorbing fitness applications. They’re certainly worth considering as a cardio machine alternative, especially if you or your family enjoy video games and/or have limited space in which to exercise at home. Your VR activity levels can even be tracked by the included Meta Move app and compatible bluetooth heart rate monitors are available from Garmin and Polar if you really want to get serious about your virtual training. Many apps are free, or have free-to-try demo versions, or cost between £5 and £25. A few of the more polished apps are annual or monthly subscription-based.
If you enjoy class-based fitness activities, apps such as Les Mills Bodycombat VR and FitXR are as demanding as their real world counterparts, are great fun, and will keep you coming back for more.
If you have a rowing machine, cross trainer, or exercise bike, Holofit by Holodia or VZfit can make your workouts genuinely more immersive and interesting. These two apps also have workout modes that do not require additional equipment.
Other sports activities can be simulated well in VR. Golf, table tennis, tennis, and boxing apps such as Golf+, Eleven VR, First Person Tennis, and The Thrill Of The Fight are all excellent and may even have some crossover into enhancing your actual skills (see the video below).
Serious sports players will enjoy focused, intense performance development apps such as Reakt or Rezzil Player, but there are also many good meditation and relaxation apps available for those who wish to use their VR time simply to escape the stresses of the real world. These include titles such as TRIPP and Maloka.
This list is a work in progress and is by no means comprehensive, but I hope you find it useful. If you want to view the list fullscreen, just open the table in a new tab (right click/select and ‘open frame in new tab’).
(Links are to the Meta Quest Store, but many of the apps are also available for other standalone headsets such as the Pico Neo 4 and for PCVR/PSVR.)
