Skip to main content

Studying the impact of virtual reality exercise on the human body.

As seen in…


                                             

What is the VR Health Institute?

The Virtual Reality Institute of Health and Exercise (VR Health Institute) is an independent research & ratings organization created to study the health impact of virtual and augmented reality. Working with the San Francisco State University’s Kinesiology department, we use scientifically reliable tools to rate the exercise potential of VR and Augmented experiences.

More About Us

Recent VR Exercise Ratings:

FitXR

8.34 to 8.84 kcals per min

Supernatural

12 to 13.10 kcals per min

Until You Fall

6.83 to 8.51 kcals per min

Orc Hunter

4.12 to 4.46 kcals per min

Late For Work

3.41 to 4.1 kcals per min

ThunderGod

3.41 to 4.22 kcals per min

Animal Force

1.86 to 2.12 kcals per min

Music Escape

5.12 to 7.07 kcals per min

Mace and Grace

2.33 to 2.69 kcals per min

Flappy Flappy VR

2.08 to 2.28 kcals per min

Bardo

3.05 to 3.2 kcals per min

Singularity 5

3.93 to 4.44 kcals per min

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

VR Health Institute Blog:

Introducing the Official VR Health Calorie App:

The VR Health Exercise Tracker

VR is becoming a powerful tool for combating adult & childhood obesity, but accurately tracking your calories in VR is difficult. General purpose fitness trackers struggle with new exercises like VR because they have limited metabolic data on VR-specific movement. The VR Health Exercise Tracker is built on hundreds of hours of VR-specific metabolic testing using research-grade equipment in the labs of the VR Institute of Health & Exercise and the Kinesiology labs at San Francisco State University. It is and will always be free.

Learn more

Introducing the

VR Health Exerciser Tracker

Play games, improve health, and lose weight with the first workout and calorie tracker built specifically for VR. Official app of the VR Institute of Health & Exercise.

Learn More
4619529000

calories have been burned playing Beat Saber since its release:

According to SteamSpy.com, gamers played more than 18,530,000 hours of Beat Saber since its release in May 2018. Metabolic testing has shown that Beat Saber burns an average of 6.55 calories per minute during active gameplay. That’s at least 4,639,374,000 calories in this one game alone.

or the equivalent of

Doing 8,104,436,842 individual sit-ups

9,624,019 hours of aerobics

Running around the Earth 1,405 times

NOT drinking 24,313,311 lattes

Avoiding 18,478,116 hamburgers

Sprinting to the moon and back… and then to the moon and back again… and then again… and then another time… and 140 times more… and then to the moon and like, 84% of the way back, which still isn’t too bad…

Pacebreaker:

An Experiment in AI-Perfected Exercise

VR is not just fun exercise. It’s the first generation of exercise equipment capable of meaningful live bio-feedback. Pacebreaker is the VR Health Institute’s testing ground for research-based next generation exercise in VR, artificial intelligence, and content that can help save lives.

Join Our Mailing List For (Occasional) Updates:

*The VR Health Institute will never use your e-mail address for anything other than communicating with you about our work here at the Institute.

Follow us on:

info@vrhealth.institute

Helpful Links

Developer & Media Resources

We encourage developers to share their ratings. Here are high resolution versions of the VR Exercise badges for use on Steam, webpages, or other promotions of rated content. There’s also video footage of subjects exercising in VR for promotional purposes, or for media b-roll.

Media Kit

Submit Your Game

If you are a game developer working on a title you think might be good exercise, please consider submitting it for rating. Our goal is to help players discover the games that have the greatest potential health benefits, and that’s far easier to do with your help.

Learn How

Our Rating Methodology

We strive to be very transparent in how we calculate our VR Exercise Ratings. Observed metabolic impact is influenced by many factors like player intent, player skill, game level, and game familiarity. Please read about our assumptions, methodology, and rating processes.

Learn More

Contact & Collaborate

The VR Health Institute exists to connect people interested in Augmented Exercise. We’re powered mostly by the passion of our members. If you are an organisation or individual interested in being involved with the VR Health community, please reach out to us.

Contact Us

Contributing Members

The primary function of the VR Health Institute is to assess and publish VR Exercise Ratings. VR Exercise Ratings are assigned to virtual reality and augmented experiences based on metabolic testing to determine realistic calorie expenditure during play. VR Exercise Ratings make it easy to understand a game’s likely level of calorie burn by comparing it to common non-VR forms of exercise.

Linkedin

Aaron Stanton
Founder & Director
VR Institute of Health & Exercise

SFSU Bio

Dr. Marialice Kern, PHD, FACSM
Professor & Department Chair of Kinesiology
San Francisco State University

SFSU Bio

Jimmy Bagley, PHD
Assistant Professor of Kinesiology
San Francisco State University

Linkedin

Trenton Stewart
Academic Research Program Manager

Linkedin

Ryan Durk
Head Strength & Conditioning Coach
& Teaching Lab Manager
San Francisco State University

Always consult your physician before beginning any exercise program. This information is not a replacement for your healthcare professional. Please read our full disclaimer and terms of use.

Contact Us

      
info@vrhealth.institute
Media assets here

Copyright 2017, Virtual Reality Institute of Health and Exercise. All Rights Reserved.