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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

This looks and sounds like hell on earth, exercising is really fool proof we don't need all these gadgets.

A power cage, a bench, bar and some weight is all you need. And given what they charge at that VR gym you could buy a whole set in less than 6 months there. Do some basic 5x5 programm 30 min a day 3 days a week and you'll be in better shape than 80% of the population in no time. If you don't have the motivation for this man-up and stop being a useless slob, life is hard and this is one of the easiest part of it

Tech is trying to solve more and more non-problems. In this case the solution seems even worse than the problem itself

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I think there's a certain class of people who find exercise inherently interesting, and others who don't. VR is for the latter.

(I've gone to the gym ~7 years daily, I now do some supplement stuff also in VR, and I've noticed an improvement since adding VR. I think it's because VR workouts impose structure that the rest of my routine lacks. There are ways I could add more structure to my regular routine of course, but I don't want to expend the additional mental energy that way, especially in an ongoing basis.)

I'm definitely one of the latter but it's very common and huge segments of the modern "fitness market" are specifically tailored to different flavors of this. Rock climbing, boxing & BJJ, racket sports etc. There are tons of options for people to get moderate physical activity while doing other things, and have a reasonable level of fitness from it.

But if you want to achieve even serious amateur athlete-level fitness on any dimension there's going to be a solid amount of drudgery to overcome though, and I don't see how VR really addresses that.

I don't particularly enjoy it, but 2 hours a week is a cheap price to pay not to be in better shape than 80%. It's one of the craziest effort/gain ratio out there, the closest thing to a magic pill. It's not a hobby or entertaining, it's maintenance. I don't like doing an oil change but I know that if I skip too much my car will die.

I also don't particularly enjoy working yet I do that 8 hours a day.

I am part of the latter group, and for me, the solution has been BJJ. You just have to find something that is not just running or lifting weights.

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