How a virtual reality headset could replace your gym membership.

Imagine a gym workout that burns 400 calories in half an hour and allows you to explore space at the same time. We might not mean the real space, but such is the advancement of virtual reality and the new breed of calorie-burning games that users have reported being so immersed in their simulated environment they suffer vertigo and motion sickness.

Unlike augmented reality, which puts a layer of data over a view of the real world, virtual reality uses a headset and earphones to conjure up a 3D landscape and allows you to move around it. Add a handheld device with resistance functionality and you have the perfect gear for the fitness devotee.

The results are impressive. According to The Virtual Reality Institute of Health and Exercise, many VR games burn similar calories to running, swimming and tennis. One of the top scorers is The Thrill Of The Fight, which places you in a boxing ring and burns up to 15 calories a minute, the equivalent of sprinting. Holopoint has a similar calorie burn, but through a fast-paced archery game. Want more punishment? Try adding wearable weights to your ankles, arms and torso to increase resistance.

Last year, Facebook cut the price of its Oculus Rift to compete with Sony’s Playstation VR, HTC’s Vive and Samsung’s Gear. Jostling with them is a rising group of niche VR specialists. Black Box uses a Vive headset with its own bespoke motion-tracking forearm bands and pulley system to create a “virtual reality gym”, which can be used at home. This autumn, Black Box will embrace bricks and mortar with its first VR gym in San Francisco.

Swiss developer Holodia has created Holofit, a software that connects a headset with tailor-made rowing machines, ellipticals and spin bikes, taking you paddling down croc-infested rivers, swimming with whales and moving through space, and burning up to 370 calories per 30 minutes.

Icaros is a rotating frame, which users climb onto and move by shifting their body weight and engaging their core, while a headset offers distraction with a flight across mountain ranges. The German-made equipment is mostly sold to gyms and sports centres, but it’s recently become available for home shipping.

This September, British gym 24/7 Fitness will be holding taster sessions on an Icaros machine at several of its gyms. “For most people the gym is a necessary evil, or worse a brief fad,” says Mr Gary Lockwood, CEO of 24/7 Fitness. “We need to change the fitness experience – no more walking on the treadmill like a hamster on a wheel. The excitement of VR distracts from the physical element so an hour feels like 10 minutes.”

It’s also a lot less intimidating than the pumped up personal trainer you’ve been meeting every Monday morning for the last year. Could traditional PTs be about to get their P45?

London-based PT Mr Scott Laidler isn’t losing any sleep over it. “I think fitness classes will become fully automated, but there will always be room for coaching, especially with resistance training and nutrition,” he says. “Workouts need to have a desired outcome if they’re to be judged effective. If the outcome is dependent on the game but the outcome doesn’t take into account your fitness goal, intensity or heart rate, it’s not accurate enough.” He recommends incorporating one VR workout into your weekly training plan and cautions against excessive use. “If a VR game can mimic low-level excursion, such as hiking, that’s fine but if it’s high intensity, such as boxing, you need to restrict your use to one or two fights.”

There are also logistical issues with VR: you need a large space free of obstructions, which rules out just about every room in a normal home, let alone the outdoors, so for now, you will have to pay a gym for the pleasure. Then again, come Monday when you’re dragging a weight sled through the gym while a PT bellows in one ear and Mr David Guetta blasts in the other, that home VR suite might seem worth the price after all.