Augmented Reality and fitness
When it comes to diet and fitness, people constantly look for the new ways of losing weight. There are tons of different diets and exercises, but let’s face it: the best way would be to eat whatever you want with not much physical effort added to it. Could augmented reality further support our fitness goals?
There are so many ways to stay in shape. Even though people know about them, there is a high level of obesity. We can definitely call it a growing health epidemic of our era. So how about AR in our exercise routines? Augmented reality has been constantly innovating industries including marketing, healthcare, aviation, tourism, and why not fitness?
How fitness industry benefits from AR?
Generally speaking, a connection between fitness and technology isn’t the best one since the second one is seen as the enemy of physical activity. Nevertheless, research and market data show that there’s a reversal of that trend going on. Today, it’s easier to see how technology, fitness and general wellbeing can work together, and the way they’re able to do that is through immersive technology. The department of kinesiology at San Francisco State University has launched its VR Health Institute, which is studying a way to use virtual games and looking at the number of calories players burn during a session.
What is great about fitness industry is that augmented reality is having a big impact on motivation thus it is improving the desire to get active, as well as improving the resulting benefits for the body and mind. Augmented reality and fitness are strickly related. Imagine working out in beautiful surroundings of a Nordic forest or a Caribbean beach. Or simply doing the exercises on a mat in your bedroom because the weather isn’t helping to get out there and head to the gym 15km away.
So, what are the possible advantages for a workout in AR? The most obvious one is that since it’s not completely immersive, it allows people to still relate to their surrounding environment, it can provide you with real-time information about what’s going on in your body exactly while you’re working out. By using real-time data on things like pace, performance and results, our training could absolutely improve. The examples of some apps’ features would be the ability to show your training sessions on a 3D map, just like a hologram – you can zoom in on the street, or get information on your pace or calories burned.
Using Augmented Reality
The number of AR fitness apps is continuously rising. For instance, there is one popular AR app called Zombies, Run! which is growing increasingly popular in the fitness set. Through your headphones, you listen and follow along as a helicopter pilot helps you escape a zombie apocalypse. Before you know it, you’ve run a 5K. Isn’t it great?
Also, you can receive personalized workout videos through an AR device such as smart glasses to jumpstart your fitness regimen (find out more about AR devices here). Imagine, with this technology, you can have your own, personal fitness instructor showing you the latest workouts, like high-intensity interval training, yoga or Pilates. This reduces the nervousness associated with going to a fitness class for the first time, helping you on that first step of just understanding how everything is done. Further, you can receive real-time instructions through AR smart glasses or just your headphones on your form, helping you maximize the effectiveness of your exercise and minimizing the chance of injury.
There is no sense with exercising without fun!
Adding some gaming elements to your exercices, helps workouts become more accessible and rewarding to help you reach your fitness goals.
When it comes to people who are not used to exercising regularly, adding some sort of fun element goes a long way towards keeping them motivated through those notoriously tough first weeks and beyond. Not everyone loves working out for working out’s sake right off the bat — it can take an extra level of engagement up front to help them power through the tough first stages of a new fitness regimen before exercising feels rewarding on its own.
Millions of people are trying to find ways to fight obesity and health risks associated with it. The usage of immersive technology is definitely a big step to increase engagement and elevate the fun factor in workouts. While the fitness industry is yet to adopt augmented reality in their training programs, it will certainly attract and intrigue more of us, especially the young ones, to get off the bed and become more active and start embracing a healthy lifestyle through exercises.
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