Lifestyle
Hit your 2024 exercise goals with these VR fitness apps and games
The experience is virtual, but the results are real. Here’s our breakdown of the best VR workouts. Above, Meta’s Supernatural fitness app.
Meta
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Meta
The experience is virtual, but the results are real. Here’s our breakdown of the best VR workouts. Above, Meta’s Supernatural fitness app.
Meta
I’m standing on top of Machu Picchu, listening to Lil Wayne and smashing flying spheres with a bat in each hand. The instructor encourages me to look around and take in the beauty around me. The next song starts and I’m transported to Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. This isn’t a fever dream or transcendental meditation — it’s a VR fitness app called Supernatural — one of many available today in a quickly-growing market.
An estimated 1 to 2 million people work out in virtual reality monthly. If you’re like me and find it hard to spend meaningful time in the gym, VR fitness might be for you. You don’t need much to get started, but I’d recommend Meta’s $40 silicon facial insert to avoid getting your headset sweaty and a yoga mat to help orient yourself in VR. A 20-minute VR workout can burn roughly as many calories as a 20-minute exercise bike routine. Here are my picks from the apps I’ve tested:
Our top 5 general fitness VR apps
Les Mills BodyCombat
Odders
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Odders
Les Mills BodyCombat: Les Mills BodyCombat is great for beginners as a one-time purchase with a lot to offer—the workouts center around punching, squatting, and knee-striking targets. The trainers are engaged and projected in a Star Wars-esque hologram before the workouts begin, which feels paced just right and strongly emphasizes form. After a 20-minute boxing-style workout, I burned 228 calories, making it one of the most efficient VR workouts I’ve tried.
While the October update for LM Body Combat added workouts and a new mixed reality mode showing you the room around you, I find myself looking to other apps and games for variety. It also doesn’t have a “cool down” after the workouts – so I’ll typically switch to another app after my workout to unwind. $30/one time purchase
FitXR: FitXR is a subscription-based app with a diverse line of workouts. A recent update added Zumba and a mixed reality mode called Slam to a roster that includes boxing, combat, high-intensity interval training, sculpt and dance — with new modes added frequently.
I enjoy FitXR quite a bit, but it’s not my top recommendation due to the cost, the poor avatar graphics, and some missing mixed-reality options. Despite these issues, I still find myself returning to this app regularly. I love their HIIT workout, where you’re smashing orbs to beat your best time and compete with the rest of the users in the class. Working out for 25 minutes doing warmups, HIIT, boxing, and a cooldown, I burned 262 calories, which is comparable to a moderate Peloton cycling workout for me. $9.99/month
Supernatural: Supernatural is one of the most popular VR fitness apps – so popular that Meta bought out its developer, Within, for $430 million in February 2023.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a polished experience with beautiful locations from around the world, popular music you’ll recognize, and exuberant trainers with two main workout types — Boxing and Flow. In Flow, you’ll swipe through orbs with baseball bats. You’ll also need to squat to pass through giant triangles, leg lift from side to side, and perform knee strikes. While my heart rate wasn’t always as high as with FitXR and Les Mills, Supernatural gave my lower body more of a workout. $9.99/month
Xponential+
Will Mitchell/Xponential+
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Will Mitchell/Xponential+
Xponential+: Xponential+, the newest offering for Quest platforms, has partnered with established workout studios such as Pure Barre, Stretch Lab, and Club Pilates to bring their workouts to augmented reality. I love how the app brings the workout into your living room by displaying a small version of the trainer on your floor or ceiling when it detects that you’re in a plank, pushup, or lying on your back. There’s no longer a need to crane your neck during a workout to keep an eye on your trainer’s form — a great example of how mixed reality can solve the problems of more traditional fitness classes. $9.99/month – also includes access to workouts via app or web
Vrit: Equal parts game and workout — Vrit has a zany Nintendo feel. As far as I can tell, it’s about a competition with robotic spheres in “sports battles” to defend the clouds of Earth. The story is a bit ambiguous, but this $3.00 game is truly entertaining and one of only a few apps that uses hand tracking and has you engaging in floor routines like planks and pushups as well as running in place (I preferred doing “high knees” instead for those sections). $3.00/one time purchase
VR Fitness on a bike
There are two main options for working out in VR on a stationary bike: Holofit and VZFit.
VZFit
VirZOOM
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VirZOOM
VZFit: I recommend VZFit the most. The app has digital worlds for you to bike through and a Google Street mode where you’ll spin through real locations. Stitching Street View photos together leads to wonky visuals, but it held my interest and I appreciate that they’re trying something new. While VZFit doesn’t offer as many “digital worlds” as Holofit does — I preferred its overall look and feel. $9.99/month
Holofit: Holofit can take you places — from a fictional cyberpunk world to Antarctica, the deep sea, and the streets of Paris. While some graphics seem dated, they teem with life and personality. You can compete in races and games or ride more leisurely while looking for hidden items. Holofit’s big advantage is its ability to sync with your bike, elliptical, or rowing machine, but it doesn’t feel as good as competing VZFit. $11.99/month
More games that will get you moving
Even better, many VR games crafted for good old-fashioned entertainment are still demanding enough to raise your heart rate. At 40, I’m starting to feel the effects of age, so I welcome the option to play games to stay active.
Beat Saber
Meta
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Meta
Beat Saber: It would be a sin not to mention Beat Saber — the go-to VR rhythm game that has you slicing cubes with lightsabers in time to music. Harder difficulty levels can definitely raise your heart rate and I frequently use Beat Saber as a warmup or cooldown before jumping in or out of more intense workout apps. $30, additional music packs cost more
GorillaTag
Another Axiom
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Another Axiom
Gorilla Tag: One of the most popular VR games with the younger crowd, you play as a gorilla without legs and will use your arms and hands to bound around a gigantic map. You’ll be running, dodging, climbing, and wall-jumping physically around the room. My 11-year-old nephews introduced me to the game while I struggled to keep up, but it’s a great time — as much a social experience as it is a physically demanding game. Free
Nock
Normal VR
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Normal VR
Nock: Nock, a personal favorite, is soccer with bows and arrows on ice — and you can jump incredibly high. It’s a competitive sport that gets so intense that I sometimes forget I’m in VR, even as it exhausts me after a few rounds. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose, but it’s always exciting! $10/one time purchase
No More Rainbows: Another favorite of mine. You’ll get around the levels in a similar way to Gorilla Tag, using your arms and hands as legs to run, jump, and climb. At its heart, it’s a platformer with charming characters, levels and a silly story. $20/one time purchase
OhShape
Odders
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Odders
OhShape: I first saw OhShape’s concept of contorting your body to fit into a cutout hole in a YouTube clip from a Japanese game show. In OhShape’s version of the game, you’ll fit into shapes in time with songs. It’s a lighter workout, but its conceit works perfectly in VR. $20/one time purchase
Pistol Whip
Cloudhead Games
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Cloudhead Games
Pistol Whip: Another music/rhythm game, Pistol Whip, has you shoot to the beat of a song while dodging fire from around you. You won’t think it’s much of a workout at first, but your quads will wonder what happened after a few rounds of ducking and dodging. $30/one time purchase
Racket Club
Resolution Games
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Resolution Games
Racket Club: Racket Club is like pickleball but is made specifically for VR. There’s virtual plexiglass around the small court to bounce shots off of and a unique scoring system based on how long you can keep up a rally. You’ll need to maneuver around your playspace to return the ball, which will get you moving like nothing else. $25/one time purchase
Synth Riders: This rhythm game turns your hands into orbs to follow tracks to hit other orbs. You’ll need to hold your arms in various positions to keep up with the music, and it starts to feel like a workout quickly! $25/one time purchase
Thrill of the Fight: I’ve never been more out of breath in VR than boxing opponents in Thrill of the Fight, which is easy to recommend at $10. You’ll box through 10+ opponents as you attempt to be the king or queen of the ring. Going face-to-face with your opponents is intimidating, as they can easily knock you out. Their new mixed reality mode brings the fighters into your living room, which is both intense and useful in preventing injuries to yourself or innocent passers-by! $10/one time purchase
Until You Fall
Schell Games
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Schell Games
Until You Fall: Until You Fall will have you slashing and parrying sword attacks as you try to advance through a 1980s neon aesthetic that’s hard not to love. The game’s mechanics are deceptively simple but quickly ramp up in difficulty. By the time you’re on level 4 or 5, you’ll be wiping sweat from your headset. $25/one time purchase
The future of VR Fitness
2024 could be a landmark year for mixed reality. The Meta Quest 3 makes it much easier to see the world around you while you work out, and we’re already seeing specialized headsets designed for work, like the upcoming Immersed Visor and Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro. It’s only a matter of time before we see specialized headsets for fitness. In the meantime, if you recently got a VR headset over the holidays or you’ve been looking for a reason to dust yours off and jump back in, there has never been a better time to break a sweat in virtual reality.
James Perkins Mastromarino contributed to this article.
On-air challenge
Every answer is a word, name, or a familiar phrase in which the first syllable is pronounced “fair” — in any spelling. (Ex. Locale for an exhibition –> FAIRGROUND)
1. Long stretch on a golf course
2. Alternative to Celsius in temperatures
3. Alaska city just south of the Arctic Circle
4. Boat that transports passengers across a river or body of water
5. Monarch in ancient Egypt
6. Medical term for the throat
7. Revolving ride at an amusement park
8. “Cinderella” or “Hansel and Gretel”
9. Small, domesticated animal related to the European polecat
10. Historical Jewish sect in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles
11. County of northern Virginia that’s adjacent to Washington, D.C.
12. Actress Morgan
13. Louis who leads the Nation of Islam
14. Chemical secreted by the body that’s a stumulant to others
15. Fond goodbye
Last week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from Jim Francis, of Kirkland, Wash. Think of a famous female singer (8,4). The first syllable of her first name, the second syllable of her first name backward, and last name forward again are all verbs associated with human desire. Who is this singer?
Challenge answer
Courtney Love
Winner
Larry Birkenmeyer of Glenview, Illinois
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from Mike Reiss, a longtime writer and showrunner for “The Simpsons.” Name a classic song with a two-word title. Drop the first letter. Add an R after the new first letter. The result will be the names of two countries one after the other. What song is this?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, June 4 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
Jean Smart.
HBO Max
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HBO Max
This review of the Hacks series finale includes spoilers for the episode.
It also discusses suicide.
The truth — my truth — about the fifth and final season of HBO Max’s Hacks is that I would have left it at the end of the penultimate episode last week. Deborah’s show in Central Park, improvised after she was thwarted in her efforts to play Madison Square Garden, was a triumph. The story has always been, after all, about Deborah and Ava together, outdoing the expectations other people have for them and outfoxing the people who try to thwart them. So being embraced by a huge outdoor crowd, surrounded by people who love them, was just the right ending. Not too heavy for a comedy, not too idealized and neat.
In this week’s series finale, you get a much more melodramatic story. The earlier hints about Deborah’s health problems mature into the news that she has cancer, but she has decided to forgo treatment and travel to Switzerland to undergo an assisted suicide. She also wants Ava to go with her. Ava is furious and panicked, wanting Deborah to choose differently, but Deborah’s mind is made up. In the end, encouraged by Jimmy to respect Deborah’s decision, Ava appears at the airport, and the two go to Paris for a final vacation before they travel on to Zurich. They laugh and walk, and Deborah gives Ava her first taste of Parisian bread. They shop for skin care, they go to the Louvre (which Deborah buys out just for them), and they debate Van Gogh. They even go dancing.
Perhaps I was naive to never believe the show was going to end with Deborah’s suicide. Perhaps it might have ended that way. But it doesn’t. (Here, I am tempted to say, “Of course it doesn’t.”) After Ava fights Deborah, concedes, fights her again, and concedes again, Deborah suddenly (very suddenly) realizes she still likes writing jokes, and she decides to write a new hour with Ava and begin cancer treatment instead of going to Zurich and ending her life. “Happy Days Are Here Again” plays as they walk together in Paris, and then later in Vegas. The end.
I’ve always been of two minds about Hacks: the scene-level writing is impeccable, the jokes have a high hit rate, and the performances are utterly singular, but I’ve always found the plot choices frustrating. By Season 4, the basic story was repeating over and over (they feud; they make up; they feud; they make up). But even then, the jokes were still working, and the performances were exceptional.
Similarly, in this finale, the scenes in Paris are not only great to look at; they are very funny and wildly charming. Even in a short, slapstick bit where Deborah cracks herself up by making Ava try to learn stick shift driving a boxy little rental car through a roundabout, the kicker line from Ava, “Why am I in the rough draft of a car?” is just a straight-up great line. These are gorgeous scenes between the actresses (who are co-leads and always have been; do not let the Emmys deceive you), and they are a great gift to the many people who have loved Hacks over its very successful run. These characters are soul mates, and it is delightful seeing them, once and for all, on the same side.
But the flip side is this: When you incorporate a story about illness and death, especially very late in a show’s run, and especially if it resolves abruptly, it can seem maudlin or manipulative. Death is just a big bat to swing in a comedy series, and there’s a good argument that Hacks just didn’t need it. There is plenty of emotional heft in the history of Deborah and Ava, and in the stories of their careers, without a death scare. And because it was a death scare, some things got awkward, like … Why did D.J., Deborah’s daughter, play no role in any of this? Certainly, Deborah might not want to tell her, but when begging Deborah not to die and pulling out all the stops, would Ava not have talked about her family? Might “please don’t leave me,” touching as it was, have been accompanied by “or your daughter”?
It’s not that the Hacks finale was bad, not by a longshot. (Though the Jimmy/Kayla triumph where they re-enter Latitude to literal applause was perhaps a bit pat.) It’s the capper to a very successful and very good show, which has been richly rewarded with awards and seems highly likely to rack up a few more this fall. But it did, in the end, feel a bit like a hat on a hat, like they didn’t quite trust what’s been built between those two characters enough to pack a wallop without the Grim Reaper stalking the episode. But perhaps it would not have been a Deborah Vance production if it weren’t just a bit over the top.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 9 8 8 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
This piece also appears in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Lifestyle
‘Wait Wait’ for May 30, 2026: Our Endless Summer with Tiffany Haddish, Lucy Dacus, and more!
Lucy Dacus of Boygenius performs at the Outdoor Theatre during the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 15, 2023 in Indio, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Coachella)
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This week, we celebrate an early start to summer by revisiting our interviews with Tiffany Haddish, Taimane, Becca Mann, and Lucy Dacus!
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