https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/17/18306150/fitness-health-virtual-reality-beat-saber
“The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse, circa 1911
Ask any professional writer for the secret of their success, and there’s a good chance they’ll respond with some variation of the above advice. It was passed down to me by my Aunt Nene, updated for the contemporary generation as “the secret of writing is ass in chair.”
Ass-in-chair produces results, as a method. But it can weaken and destroy your body in practice, which is exactly what happened to your humble narrator. I spent 10 to 16 hours a day with my ass in a chair, writing — or often trying and failing to write — comic books and video games from 2014 through 2016. Every day I woke up, put my ass in the chair, worked in my chair, ate in my chair and, for all intents and purposes, lived in my chair.
I gained about 20 pounds in those two years, and I wasn’t happy with myself. I tried changing my eating habits, but dieting alone wouldn’t take the fat off. I had to exercise.
The trouble was that the more I exercised, the more pain I felt in my lower back, which zapped me with searing bolts of lightning whenever I jumped, ran, climbed, or swam. I needed to be more active, but I was capable of doing less and less. Even sitting became painful, which caused me to order a standing desk and finally see a doctor, but it was too late.
[...]It was January 2017. I was alone at home, standing in my kitchen, waiting for a tea kettle to boil, when I coughed. A fiery lightning bolt pierced my lower back. The pain shot down through my toes and swept my legs out from under me. Everything flashed white. Then I found myself on the floor, immobile and in worse pain than I’ve ever known.
An MRI confirmed the culprits: two herniated discs in my lumbar spine. I couldn’t sit, drive, or do much of anything comfortably for months. I had no paid time off as a freelancer, so my only option was to write while standing up. It felt unnatural at first, but I adapted.
Long-term physical therapy along with a better diet helped up to a point and then plateaued.
I needed full-body, high-intensity cardio activity that would not aggravate my back. I found it by accident, while experimenting with the Oculus Rift.
[...]I played for hours my first night, sampling a bunch of great games that I still recommend today: Lone Echo, Robo Recall,Space Pirate Trainer, and The Climb, a rock-climbing game which lets anyone indulge their inner Alex Honnold and free solo their way up some intimidating mountains.
My back, shoulders, legs, and arms all became sore the next day. Not injured sore, but post-workout recovery sore. Maybe I hadn’t fixed a real space station, fought an army of robots, or scaled Siberian glaciers, but my body seemed to think it was real enough. This more than playing games. It was rehab.
He played a variety of games but the one standout was Beat Saber.
You play while standing on a platform in a neon-lit industrial void. There’s a red plasma-saber in your left hand, and a blue plasma-saber in your right. Beats fly toward you in red and blue boxes as your choice of music plays. You have to slice each box in half, while matching your saber colors to the colors of the beats.
I used short, tight motions to play at first, until I found that a perfect 50/50 slice and a 150-degree arc on each swing would maximize my score. The beats came at me so quickly in later levels that I had to master complex swing patterns, two-handed slashes, crossovers, and drumlike trill strokes. Energy walls sometimes flew at me with the beats, forcing me to squat and dodge while swinging my sabers.
Beat Saber became the new centerpiece of my daily routine. I played it for over an hour on my best days, swinging through songs again and again to master them as the sweat fell on my yoga mat. I found myself catching a runner’s high about 40 to 50 minutes into most sessions, causing the whole world to melt away as the Force flowed through my body, guiding my sabers to their beats. No aches, no pains, and no strains. Just pure, kinetic flow.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:58PM (1 child)
This article worries me as I sit in my cubicle reading it. The bit issue demonstrated is sitting is bad for you. VR is a non-standard exercise routine; maybe this will encourage me to investigate a VR system for myself.
(Score: 2, Informative) by maestro on Thursday April 18 2019, @11:20PM
VR is crazy fun and definitely a workout. I'm usually sore after I play Skyrim VR since you're dodging things and swinging a sword around. There are so many great games. This article is interesting though. I'd never considered using VR as a cardio exercise platform. It's funny because just the other day I had cardio recommended to me due to elevated resting heart rate. I also spend half the day sitting in a chair.
The downside of VR is that it is fairly expensive. You need a beefy PC and the HTC Vive I have ran around $800. I also have the wall sensors mounted on light stands so they aren't up permanently and getting everything set up first is kind of a pain. But once you've got it going it is just bonkers fun.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @01:22AM (3 children)
Even if we don't exercise vigorously we benefit from myokines, hormone-like chemical secreted by contracting muscles for which there are receptors in places as diverse as the immune system and the brain.
(Score: 1) by maestro on Friday April 19 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)
This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a while.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 19 2019, @10:54AM
Well, read some more [wikipedia.org], the AC was onto something
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:02AM
You must be new to Soylent News.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @02:06AM (1 child)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EfcNkZHxZoo [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @10:58AM
Ewww... take that instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ0mxQXmLsk [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @07:44AM
So, just like "EyeToy Play Hero"?
CYA
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday April 19 2019, @10:07AM (1 child)
Well, then you didn't change your old habits correctly. This is THE way to lose weight. You have to get calorie intake under control. You can easily lose weight without exercise, although building muscle mass helps a good deal too. You just can't really do both at the same time all that well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @11:02AM
You can actually exercise while sitting. Just ask Kegel, the tightest ass around.