The world’s first virtual reality gym opened recently in San Francisco, promising a workout that will make people “never want to visit an outdated gym again.”
Founded in 2016 by Preston Lewis and Ryan DeLuca, Black Box VR spent three years refining its technology in preparation for opening its flagship store in Fox Plaza on March 11.
Lewis and DeLuca, who previously built online supplement site Bodybuilding.com, decided to open their first gym in Mid-Market because "it is a premier location for the headquarters of some of the largest technology companies in the world," including Twitter, Uber, Dolby and Square.
The neighbourhood boasts "a great population of live/work tech and fitness enthusiasts," Lewis told abc7news.com.
Black Box VR promises a gym experience “like no other by giving users a full-body workout while virtually immersed in another world that requires them to fight battles and beat their opponent,” according to RT.
Black Box VR manager, Kayla Abeyta, said while diet and exercise will always be the foundation of losing weight and burning fat, distraction is the key to keeping gym-goers motivated. The 30 - minute workouts combine resistance training with high-intensity cardio.
Exercisers can compete against their own past performance, another player, or both, using game-based VR scenarios.
Each exercise gets a solo 10' x 10' room to work out, where they don a VR headset and wearable devices that track their hand positioning, then execute their workouts on the company's proprietary resistance training machine, according to abc7news.com.
Black Box, which aims to expand further, is also exploring options for a home-based version of the system.
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