In praise of GarageTime
In the pandemic while under home quarantine, I find myself and my family using every available square foot of space. If you are lucky enough to have a living situation that affords you outdoor space, I’m sure you’re using it to keep sane. As an urban dweller, our garage has become a respite from the mad monotony of the day for my family. And I have come to love GarageTime.
My kids use GarageTime to ride their bicycles and scooters and engage in messy projects. During the heatwave, I’ll place an inflatable pool near the garage entrance and fill it with water to splash around for a day.
I use my GarageTime to exercise in VR.
The outcome: 60 min sweat-filled HIIT workout where I burn 600 — 700 calories according to my AppleWatch. I’m unsure the last time that a gym workout on a random day would provide me the same outcome. Truth is, I’m not a group fitness fan, but apparently I’m a VR fitness fan. I’ve been systematically trying to improve my fitness over the past 2 years. And while my local gym has just opened up with social distancing in place, I’m unsure if I’m ever going back.
How it happens: Oculus Quest, AppleWatch, some jumping jacks, and two amazing VR experiences. I center myself in my garage. My workout starts with 30 to 40 jumping jacks to get the blood moving. I trigger the High-Intensity Workout tracking on my AppleWatch and then I put my VR headset on. My workout is split between virtual fitness app Supernatural and boxing simulation a Thrill of the Fight.
Fitness app #1: Supernatural is the future of fitness
In my opinion, Supernatural shows the transformative nature of VR and the future of fitness sports training and rehabilitation.
Here’s the Oculus store description:
Supernatural is a complete and connected fitness service.
A new workout is added to your library every day.
Start your membership today with a 30-day free trial and choose from monthly or annual plans.*The Supernatural experience:
Get motivation from expert coaches
Travel to incredible destinations
Move to hand-mapped choreography as you sweat to the best of Hip-Hop, Rock, EDM, 80’s & more
Choose from a range of intensities and find the right workout for you every day
Explore in depth performance metrics and pair a heart rate tracker
Connect with a community of thousands of members as you climb the weekly leaderboard
Download the Supernatural Companion App for your smartphone to start your membership.
*Limited time offers. $0 for first 30 days, $19/month or $179/year thereafter. Membership fees will automatically begin and renew monthly or annually after the free trial ends. Cancel at any time. Terms apply. Go to getsupernatural.com for more details.
Sadly this app is currently only available in the United States and Canada.
From a recent Verge review, ‘Supernatural for Oculus Quest is like Beat Saber meets Peloton’:
To use a reductive comparison, Supernatural is sort of like Beat Saber meets Peloton. You use motion controllers to bash blocks coming towards you in time to the music, like countless other VR rhythm games. But Supernatural also uses curated workouts, choreographed patterns, and human instructors who are with you all the way, encouraging you to push harder and explaining how to get the most out of your body movements. And rather than transporting you to a Tron-like environment with aggressive EDM blasting in your ears, you’re working out to gym-friendly mainstream hits in chill photorealistic natural settings.
The app begins with you standing on a virtual yoga mat, holding two virtual bats that you use to break the virtual floating targets. Upon launching, you are greeted with an amazing view and a floating screen where you can pick today’s workout, or search through previous exercises. Each workout is based on a theme and broken out into segments that correspond to the music tracks selected for the specific workout. Workouts vary in effort and intensity.
At the beginning of each workout, you are greeted by a floating avatar of your trainer for the session. The trainer begins your workout with a stretch and some general narrative about the theme of the upcoming workout and their love for the music or workout overall. Supernatural has selected some great personalities for the platform — as their energy is infectious, despite their virtual presence. I predict that each of these trainers can grow their own personal brands through their association with the platform. Each exercise is narrated and if the app would have you believe, also done by the trainer during the session. I’d like to believe it, similar to what I assume Peloton and other remote experiences offer.
After the stretch, each workout begins with a warm-up. The warm-up is a short introduction tied to a song with trainer audio accompaniment. The Supernatural game experience begins with floating black and white targets that appear in front of you in various directions and combinations. In addition to targets, floating triangles of various widths and heights appear, forcing you to squat, step, or lunge. The warm-up is followed by 4–7 songs between 2.5 to 3.5 minutes each. The app is integrated with several HR trackers, including the AppleWatch, Polar Heart strap, and others. Each song has a custom trainer audio track offering encouragement. While it is formulaic, it does seem fresh and I find myself motivated when in flow of the exercises. Themes marry intensity and genre. I have a newfound appreciation for both old and new music when experienced in the context of Supernatural. In fact, one of the most interesting things about Supernatural is that it creates a whole new way to experience music. While the app is a workout app, it inspires coordinated movement that follows a beat. It’ll make you dance! Once mixed-reality capture becomes more mainstream, I wouldnt be surprised if an Oculus Quest app inspires the next dance meme craze.
Supernatural also provides a great mechanism for music rights holders to monetize old content or introduce artists to new audiences entirely. I can tell you that the experience that listeners have with this music is something positive for both the platform and the artist. Supernatural is a product of I know that the creators of Supernatural Within team are LA based, and well versed in content licensing — I think Supernatural can create a positive relationship with artists to help them develop their audiences and create different musical experiences around fitness.
The app launched at the end of April during the pandemic. In the span of a few months it has grown an active audience on its Facebook page and continues to see support from a growing community. I get it. I’m a fan and I’m telling everyone I know about the app. I love the trainers and the great music. You will be surprised at the power of your own body weight, when focused and intentional. You can burn a lot of calories swinging your hands, squatting and lunging for 20–30 minutes. I average 350+ for 30 minutes. Each day a new workout is issued, and that makes it seem fresh and new, like a group fitness class. I have played ‘old’ workouts more than once and am starting to find and classify certain workouts as ‘favorites’ so that I can revisit.
Read other reviews here. I have not had any negative experiences with this app, except for wifi going out once or twice — which pauses the experience as it requires an active internet connection to work.
Supernatural feature wishlist: what I hope for in the next version
- Gifting: I’m a Supernatural convert. I’d like to get more folks on the bandwagon who are Oculus Quest owners. It would be great to be able to gift someone 3–6 or 12 months of the service. While gyms are closed, I could envision more companies funding tele-exercise platforms as a benefit to their employees and view gifting as a way to increase customer acquisition without a ton of marketing spend.
- Meditation and mindfulness: Supernatural has started to include 10 minute meditation only sessions. I think there is an opportunity to create a slower, more intentional and heart/breathing focused experience, similar to what Flowborne is doing, but I appreciate the addition of meditation sessions (which is a newer feature since launch).
- Healthcare Goal Setting: Supernatural is already integrated with health tracking / HR devices, I think there are some opportunities to set goals for exercise, HR and fitness that Supernatural should allow users to set. I think it would be great to also integrate with HealthKit to allow you to see how your Supernatural activity is driving your health within the app. I could envision a future in which Supernatural is evaluated by clinical studies to drive adherence to prescribed physical exercise.
- Age-specific workouts: Supernatural has shown what is possible during a pandemic, but I think that an untapped customer segment is the Boomer segment and older. Supernatural should start to consider age-specific workouts for those with limited mobility. I could see how these exercises, targeted to an aging population could drive tremendous health benefits. The magic of Supernatural is that it is fun, immersive and that time and your aches disappear when experiencing the app. If you’re like me and belive in reinforcing the behaviors you want to see in the world, Supernatural is a gateway exercise experience towards a more fit lifestyle.
- Music Licensing: Supernatural has done a great job in finding content, as evidenced by the musical tracks that are tied to the workouts. This shows the team’s expertise in licensing. From the previous Verge article, “you’re talking about doing a deal with the music industry that’s much closer to what a Spotify deal is. You’re licensing a large catalog and not just one individual song. So the combination of those two things, you’re meeting continued music costs on a month-to-month basis and you’ve got continued production costs on a month-to-month basis because the product is alive and constantly updating. So that’s that’s what we wanted in a product. That’s the thing that we were searching for, and it was a thing that we didn’t feel existed. And it was the thing that we felt would allow us to work out on a regular basis in a system like this.” Supernatural can be a great music discovery tool, introducing new artists to audiences across the US and Canada for now. I would love to see emerging artists that might be doing well on other platforms (Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube) with content that matches the Supernatural experience.
I am a huge Supernatural fan. So much so, that I canceled my gym membership. I would be very very sad if this app went away. You should give it a try and see if you feel similar.
Fitness app #2: Thrill of the Fight is realistic boxing
Thrill of the Fight is a great boxing simulation. If you have an Oculus Quest, I cannot recommend it enough.
Via the Oculus Store description:
The Thrill of the Fight is a down-to-earth VR boxing game focused on authenticity. Enter a virtual gym and battle a series of unique challengers with their own styles and techniques. Use timing and skill to land the knockout blow. Evade swings, land jabs, and block punches to become the king of the ring!
I spent time boxing during my college years in Washington DC, and I understand the basics of boxing. The game is built by Ian Fitz, a sole developer (!!!) and reminds me of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! IRL.
A recent video from a few months back of Mike Tyson got me ready to play.
All VR apps need to calibrate the program for your height and before you start — thrill of the fight is no exceptions. The simple onboarding has a really interesting experience because what you do is step on a VR weight scale at the weigh-in for a fight. Your weight is not taken in VR. you’re standing on a red carpet, with a scale in front of you acting as a spike to set your feet. 6 feet in front of your hangs a camera that is trying to determine your height.
The game begins and your interface is the interior of a boxing gym. Your options are to either train with ‘equipment’ or begin sparring.
There are a number of opponents to choose from. Each has their specific skill and weakness. Each match ends up being 2 or 3 rounds depending on your level of difficulty, with each round lasting between 2–4 minutes.
I use this game to either start or end my workouts. It has the ability to get me into a good zone of activity and increases my heart rate after a few minutes of focused exercises, or it can continue to build off of a Supernatural workout and leave me sweating and spent after another 9 to 10 rounds (30 minutes) of sparring.
But two 3x3 rounds with a good fighter x 2 will get your body moving and heart rate up. You can go H.A.M. and keep it moving. You need a garage-full of space to enjoy this game in my opinion. You need to move your feet, but can get a great workout. The VR institute of Health and Exercise measured the average calorie output / min for this came and estimated 8–10 kcal / min — which is the equivalent of rowing.
For those that really want to feel the impact of VR and go full Ready Player One / Neo, you can also purchase wearables from bhaptics that are integrated with the game to provide haptic feedback.
You can gauge the power of a medium through its ability to evoke emotion. I’ll tell you that VR really works because you can start to dislike pixels. There are certain fighters with whom I’ll spar that evoke an emotion when we spar. And that extra bit of motivation keeps me bobbing and weaving in a desperate attempt to stay upright and in the match.
Thrill of the Fight feature wishlist: what I hope for in the next version
- Newer opponents: I think this game deserves newer fighters with different moves, combos, and weaknesses. I find myself playing the same 4 fighters at high intensity on an almost daily basis and I would like to find some other sparring partners to make me think about changing up my playing style.
- Different Venues: There are 3 venues in the current game — I think there is an opportunity to increase the quality of the game by including some different environments and backgrounds. Supernatural has figured this out with their photorealistic environments.
- Competitions and tournaments: According to a recent interview, Thrill of the Fight 2 will include Player-vs-Player interaction. I think this could be a great place for competitions and tournament play.
- Wearable integration: Allowing the app to be paired with a Polar Heart Strap, or wearable such as a Fitbit or Applewatch could enable another data source to customize gameplay. Specifically, creating a ‘workout mode’ in which the AI attempts to get you to a specific level of activity for a specific period of time.
How long till we have a VR headset in every home?
I am now a believer that Quest is the iPhone moment for VR, and I can see the transformative power of VR. Over time, I believe that these headsets will become commoditized and subsidized. VR can keep us healthy, and grounded. I believe we are on the cusp of people having dedicated spaces in their houses for VR activity, Garages are a no-brainer if you can put a little love into your spaces. You might be saying, you don’t have enough space. From a recent NYTimes article, The Small-Space Workout Challenge
Having a small space is no excuse not to tumble, kick and plank, as there are a variety of workouts that can be done almost anywhere, with a little online guidance.
Check out the article above to get your space ready. GarageTime is one of the best parts of my day and I find myself able to dedicate 30–60 minutes to some great high-intensity training.
Everything helps during this pandemic. Research from the Journal of Sport and Health Science shows that there is a compelling link between physical activity and the body’s defense system:
- Acute exercise is an immune system adjuvant that improves defense activity and metabolic health.
- Data support a clear inverse relationship between moderate exercise training and illness risk.
- Exercise training has an anti-inflammatory influence mediated through multiple pathways.
I find that regular high-intensity exercise is good for both my physical state as well as my mental wellbeing. If you have an Oculus Quest, do yourself a favor and download the apps for your own mental and physical wellbeing. I hope you find a dedicated space of your own to use during this pandemic, and beyond. And after a few months, I can tell you that there is tremendous power in small, repeated actions. I’m excited for what’s next and how we are going to rethink the future of fitness and the future of sports.
