Revealing the Secret of Immersive and Interactive Indoor Cycling

You’ve been hearing it everywhere: immersive cycling. But, what does immersive, interactive cycling actually refer to?

Immersive cycling refers to an indoor cycling environment that makes you feel as if you were cycling somewhere else by immersing you in a variety of different worlds. Instead of blankly staring at the speedometer or your wall, immersive cycling places you somewhere fun.

It’s an experience that brings about many benefits that you would otherwise miss out on.

Now, let’s see what those are.

Immersive vs. Truly Immersive Indoor Cycling

To start with, we like to differentiate immersive and truly immersive indoor cycling experiences.

Immersive cycling most often refers to 2D screens that show various environments that you can cycle in. This is what most boutique spinning studios and apps offer.

While this type of immersive cycling is definitely more fun than simply looking at your speedometer, truly immersive cycling, or VR cycling, offers a lot more.

Virtual reality cycling immerses you in a 360-degree environment that transports you to whole other worlds. Instead of merely looking at a 2D screen, VR cycling fully immerses you in an out-of-this-world experience.

So, what are the benefits of this?

Why Does Immersive and Interactive Indoor Cycling Just Work?

It has elements of a “game” so it’s fun

At one point or another, or maybe throughout our whole lives, we’ve all played games.

Why? Because they’re fun. And this is precisely what makes VR cycling fun, too.

As opposed to purely exercising, you’re now exercising while playing some type of game where your cycling directly affects your score. The better you perform, the higher your gets. The longer you work out, the better your score gets.

In HOLOFIT VR cycling, you can choose among 5 different game modes that include both single-player workouts and online multiplayer group workout game mode. Every workout that you do gets you a certain amount of points, and your total determines your ranking on the leader board.

It distracts from the pain of working out

When you’re cycling looking only at your speedometer, the biggest thought in your brain is: how much time do I have to do this for? There aren’t many things you can concentrate on except the time you have left, and the pain you’re feeling as you push yourself.

Enter immersive cycling.

With its incredible environments and the fun game modes, immersive cycling distracts you from the pain of working out. The time flies, and before you know it, you’re done with your workout!

And aside from the workout itself, the fact that you start enjoying your workouts means that your workout associations completely change. Instead of looking at it as a boring, tough obligation, you actually start to look forward to these little fun vacations in a variety of different worlds.

The online community helps motivate each other

By human nature, we love to belong. That’s why we choose to associate ourselves with various groups of people throughout our lives, as opposed to living an isolated life. And that is precisely where the value of immersive cycling communities lies.

A community usually gathers like-minded people who are on similar journeys. In an immersive cycling community, what you’ll find are other cyclists with similar interests, aspirations, and challenges that you yourself experience.

You’ll be able to meet new people, exchange tips and experiences, support each other when the going gets tough and last but not least, an online community is a great source of accountability.

All that helps make it fun, motivate you and helps keep you coming back to your bike.

Finally, it’s important to note that some VR cycling products even feature online multiplayer programs that allow you to work out or compete with others in the community in real-time.

Have a look at this video recording of a competition that we’ve organized for HOLOFIT rowers, similarly to what we do for cyclists and runners:

Its benefits have been scientifically proven

Finally, none of the above is based on hearsay. VR cycling benefits have actually been scientifically proven.

A study from the University of Kent proved that exercising in VR lessens the perceived pain intensity by an incredible 10%
The University of Georgia research has shown that high-intensity cycling is 12 – 13% less painful when combined with virtual reality
A Brunel University study has shown that VR cycling adds around 26% of perceived enjoyment, compared to the 6% enjoyment you get by only listening to music

Having all that in mind, it’s no wonder that VR cycling is getting bigger with each passing day.