newsletter 20250927 Virtual Reality Workouts
It has been a few weeks since I have listened to any audio books. Work has had me busy running a variety of different things that required more of my attention compared to running parts on a machine. Rather than just letting my little server do its work alone by posting the news and reddit posts on the website, I figured I’d give an update as to what I have been doing aside from work.
The biggest thing for me is that I started working out more.
I have been going to the gym on my days off. My internal alarm clock goes off super early even when I do not have to go to work, so I just spend a bit of time in the gym. I’m not too fanatic, but I get somethings done.
Back in 1996, I ended up with a knee injury while in the army. Ever since, my workouts have been somewhat restricted due to some mental block that basically hits a kill switch on me as soon as I get a little pain or resistance during my workouts. I keep trying and have been able to get some exercises figured out that I can push harder than others.
A few weeks ago, I cleaned out the garage, and put in some new shelving, and found a small cubby that I could use for doing some workouts. My work schedule doesn’t give me much time home on work days, aside from my daily chores and such, so going to the gym in the evenings is not an option. With the cubby, I decided to set up my PlayStation 4 Pro along with the PSVR headset. I picked up a cheap monitor wall mount from Amazon, and put an old 24 inch monitor on the wall with the PS4 on a shelf above it. With everything hooked up, it looked nice, was not in the way, and I was even able to hide most of the cabling.
I fired up BeatSaber and started hacking away in virtual reality. It was a great workout, so I kept that up for a week or so. I got bored with the songs available to me, and the song packs (DLC) you can buy are not of much interest to me either, so I started looking into putting custom songs on it. For the PlayStation, this kind of stuff is always a sore point, so that was a dead end. I had a few other “fitness” games for the PSVR, but they are all restricted in limited music choice. I pushed through another week, and kinda got into SynthRiders, which is fairly similar. It is similar but I ended up fighting with the cord that connects the headset to the PS4, so not great either.
I looked around for something that would work for me, and ended up going for the Meta Quest 3S VR Headset. It is a standalone headset (meaning no cords), and it runs its own version of Android (meaning, it is easy to modify). It is awesome.
If you look for reviews and such, people bring up that the Quest 3 is better, better lenses etc, but I don’t care. It might be nicer, but the Quest 3S works perfect for me, and it is 100x better than the PS4 PSVR for what I use it for. Sure, it does not run Skyrim VR, the main reason I have a PSVR, unless you run it on a capable Windows PC (if you have one, which I do not) through the link, but running BeatSaber with a lot of my own favorite songs, it does that. After getting the Quest 3S setup, BeatSaber purchased, I had it modded and running custom songs within 15 minutes or so, and haven’t looked back since.
Modded BeatSaber is great. A few mods add a “search engine” right into the game, where you can search and download them for use in BeatSaber right away, how awesome is that. It does not have all the songs in the world, but I had some good ,luck with my searches and got a playlist of 30-40 of my favorite songs for it.
It got better though. LES MILLS BODYCOMBAT for the Meta Quest. A true fitness app, with coaches and fitness routines of various intensities and focus points.
First week, great for getting started, I enjoyed the coaches. They really inspire you to work harder. I got quite into it, and it pushed me over my mental block with ease. It gamified the exercises, and if you are into it, you just don’t have the time to think about it. Before, squats were a big nono for me, I just couldn’t do it. It always felt like my knee caps were about to shoot a hole into the ceiling, but with these workouts, it just puts you into a squat to duck underneath an imaginary wall floating over you, and keeps you in that position having to throw forward and sideward punches, and before you know it, you are back up and ready for another rep. Then after the routine is done, you realize that you did it.
Second week, music got a little boring, coaches still cool, but I ended up turning on some music on my phone instead. It doesn’t match up perfectly, but with a huge history of “A State Of Trance” music on YouTube Music to listen to while working out, it doesn’t matter. Songs are fast enough that 95% of the beats match up with the hits on screen, and for the other hits, just focus and pay attention.
This morning, 200 incline situps, 100 assisted pull-ups and some misc. chest exercises at the gym, and 1 hour of high intensity workout with LES MILLS BODYCOMBAT. A far cry from 50 incline situps and 30mins on a stationary bike at the gym 2 weeks ago.
The fitness app has a full VR mode, which closes you off from the real world, making it totally immersive, or, the way I run it, it has XR mode, where it basically runs as a “window” broken into your own reality. Still virtual, but you can see your own surroundings, and you can keep track on your hands to make sure you are not hitting a wall (happened once to me, it hurt).
For the Quest 3s, I did add a few things to make things better for my workouts.
these are a must. The standard grips are just lanyards, and they keep sliding off my wrists. There are quite a few different grips, but it seems that most people ended up on these after trying multiple of the cheaper ones, so I just skipped all that and went right for these. I love them.
The default headstrap is ok, but not great. It does not distribute the weight properly, making it painful to wear for longer than 10 minutes. This one is probably not the best available, but it is affordable and works great for me.
Just a simple storage cate for the headset and the controllers. Nothing special, but good enough for my needs.
Tough Headwear Sport Headbands
These workouts make you sweat big time. A sweat band is a must. These work great and are very affordable.
Lamicall Headphone Stand, Sticky Headset Hanger
I have this fold-out hanger glued to a shelving mount in my workout cubby in the garage. When I am done with my workout, I hang the headset on it to let it dry / air out and plug in the charger for an hour or 2, and then place it in the storage case.
Since I do my work outs in the garage, I ended up getting 2 rugs for my little area. You can find special VR mats with knobs and other bells and whistles that supposedly make things easier for you to orient yourself in the real world when you are in the virtual world, but these are like $5 a piece, vs $50+ for one of those. I have a small gap between the 2 rugs (one for each foot) so I can feel where I am at in the garage.
VR Prescription Lenses for Meta Quest 3S
The first 2 weeks I used the headset with my glasses, and it worked but isn’t great. I opted for getting these, and now simply take my glasses out before I put on the headset, and it makes a very big difference in convenience.
And of course the Meta Quest 3S. As mentioned before, not the greatest or best according to many people, but for me, it is perfect.
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