Improving Fitness During COVID - FitXR on Oculus Quest (2021 challenge)

For one item on my 2020 Year of Marilyn Bucket List Challenge, I embraced a 3D Oculus Quest game called Beat Saber. I had actually been playing it for a few months and was progressing well, but had begun to feel I would never get through any of the songs you dueled to on the Expert Plus top skill level. To battle the "I'm too old" mentality, I put beating one of the songs on Expert Plus onto my 2020 challenge list.  I had no expectations, but once I put my mind to it, I ended up beating about 6 of the games at that level, 

Sometime during the spring of 2020, with all going on in the world around me, I just quit playing. I worked on training to run a 5K and, when that stalled out in the fall, I decided the goal would be to power walk 5K every day. My husband and I did that together most days until the weather turned and walking wasn't that pleasant. January 2021 rolled around and I realized I had really let my fitness level slide. 

Love this video from Jimmy Fallon that both

shows the person playing AND what they see.

The levels get way way harder than this. 

The pandemic didn't help. Fitness facilities and studios offering dance/yoga/martial arts shut down, then re-opened with only limited people in them.  I am in a higher risk age group and my husband has some lung issues that mean he has to be more careful, so I didn't want to chance it. The online classes didn't call me - I was tired of being on the computer working - and I didn't have a large enough home to set up a home gym. Also, working at home made it so easy to be distracted and let the daily work out routine slide.

As I looked at my new Marilyn's 2021 Bucket List Challenge - yes I chose to do it again - I zeroed in on getting my body into a healthier place. I didn't define what that meant, just left it wide open.  One day I thought about my 3D Oculus Quest sitting upstairs unused and decided to work out on it again.  I started by doing 15-20 minutes of Beat Saber.  It was great to be moving to music and swinging those light saber swords again - so very Star Wars, but to music.  I also explored other new gaming options and decided to buy a workout game called FitXR.

FitXR Boxing Squat Review

FitXR offers a variety of dance and boxing, or boxing with squats, workouts of different lengths and intensities - all done to a wide range of music. I took a brief look at a the dance workouts and decided instead to start with a medium intensity boxing/squat combination that was about 10 minutes long.  It took a little while to get the hang of the proper form of punching. Fortunately I'm a great visual learner with a dance background, so could pull from what I've seen.  If you aren't, there are boxing videos on Youtube to check your form. The better your form, the more you will benefit from these workouts.

Once I improved my punching form, I really started to feel my body being challenged and the sweat began to roll. Adding the squats into the boxing series really ups the coordination required and the level of exertion. They have straight, upper cut and side punches all put together in a series that mixes it up. I love it. And it's different enough from my Beat Saber to hit different muscle groups.

Now my daily workout my routine is 15-20 minutes of Beat Saber followed by 10 minutes of FitXR boxing and squatting (followed by some belly dancing, but that is for another post). I feel nice and achy afterwards and have a good sweat going.  Whether I lose weight or not isn't this goal here - although that would be a nice side effect. The goal is to get off the couch more, stand more and get moving again - to increase my overall tone and build a few new muscles. More muscle mass raises your metabolism which is so important for women as we age!

Can't wait to try some of the other workouts in this 3D game.