Litesport, formally Liteboxer, has upended the at-home, virtual reality fitness landscape, casting real trainers into users’ personal spaces to deliver strength, total body and boxing workouts — and things are just heating up, with the brand eyeing the healthcare space. 

Having been selected last year by Xponential Fitness to develop Xponential’s new virtual and mixed reality app for Meta Quest, Litesport co-founder and CEO Jeff Morin says 2024 is shaping up to be even better for the VR/MR fitness company.

An MIT-educated engineer and certified personal trainer with an eye for both physical and technological performance, Morin shared that Litesport doubled its active subscriber base in January and was on track for similar growth in February. 

Healthcare Applications

“Our roadmap includes expanding partnerships and venturing into healthcare, highlighted by our participation in a clinical trial for Parkinson’s research,” Morin tells Athletech News. “Additionally, we’re advancing our technology with AI-based body tracking and enhanced HD video to deliver an even more immersive and effective fitness experience.”

To hear Morin tell it, the future of VR fitness is both bright and boundless.

“As technology advances, we anticipate VR headsets becoming more compact and user-friendly, further enhancing the fitness experience,” he predicts. “Mixed reality will blur the lines between the virtual and the tangible, enabling users to interact with gym equipment in new and innovative ways.”

Of course, as with any emerging technology, artificial intelligence will also play a significant role in the VR/MR evolution, which Morin says will offer ultra-personalized workout experiences and sophisticated body tracking metrics. 

“At Litesport, we are at the forefront of these developments, integrating AI and mixed reality to make traditional gym equipment ‘smart’ and to provide personalized coaching that adapts to each user’s unique fitness journey,” he said.

Motivating More People To Work Out

Apart from its groundbreaking foray into healthcare, Morin notes that Litesport has empowered countless fitness enthusiasts by removing the traditional barriers to gym access with a welcoming, intimidation-free environment. The brand also introduced a “Standard Tier” subscription at $8.99, which Morin points out makes Litesport the most competitively priced app in the Quest market. 

“This inclusivity extends to individuals who may feel uncomfortable or are physically unable to attend in-person gym sessions,” he explained. “By leveraging VR technology, we make it possible for users to experience the benefits of a gym from the comfort and privacy of their own homes. For instance, someone hesitant to step into a boxing gym can now immerse themselves in a virtual boxing experience, gaining confidence and skills in a supportive setting.”

Litesport offers over 2,000 on-demand classes in modalities including boxing, strength and total body. Through the powers of virtual and mixed reality, the platform also democratizes access to top-tier fitness trainers, a luxury Morin points out was previously a luxury available to few.

“Through gamification and interactive elements, we also introduce an element of motivation and engagement that traditional fitness methods may lack,” Morin added.

More To Come

Morin sees boxing and beat-based workouts as the most on-trend VR fitness modalities, which he says appeal particularly to the newly adopted gamer demographic. But what sets Litesport apart is that it offers live, real trainer-led workouts for an immersive experience enhanced with proprietary hand-tracking technology that allows for using real dumbbells — a first in the VR fitness space. 

“Looking forward, we anticipate a diversification of popular modalities as users seek more varied and comprehensive fitness solutions,” Morin said.

Litesport’s VR fitness tech also has an edge over conventional fitness methods, with precision movement tracking, motivation, accountability through progress tracking and multiplayer experiences. 

“These features, combined with the ability to exercise in various virtual settings, keep workouts fresh and exciting,” Morin said. “Our approach to VR fitness emphasizes not just gamification but functional fitness, making exercise both fun and genuinely beneficial.”

The post VR Fitness App Litesport Eyes Healthcare, AI Body-Tracking appeared first on Athletech News.

After successfully establishing itself as the world’s top boutique fitness franchisor, Xponential Fitness is now looking to take over the growing virtual reality arena, beginning with three of its most popular fitness brands.

In order to stake its claim in the metaverse, the fitness curator selected Litesport to develop its popular studio workouts for its virtual and mixed-reality fitness app, Xponential+, available on the Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2. The new digital workout platform was revealed at the Meta Connect event in September.

Litesport, a fitness and wellness VR/MR tech company formerly known as Liteboxer, knows a thing or two about the magic of VR fitness, having launched its own app with a newly added strength training mode enabling real trainers to appear in a user’s space to offer dumbbell-based workouts.

For $9.99 a month, Xponential+ fitness fans can access Club Pilates, Pure Barre and StretchLab right from home. Rumble Boxing and CycleBar will be added early next year, with BFT, Stride Fitness, Row House and AKT available by the end of 2024.

“We are thrilled to partner with Litesport to introduce Xponential+ to our fitness community,” said Garrett Marshall, president of Xponential+. “This app represents a new era in fitness technology, offering our users a truly immersive and dynamic workout experience. We are excited to see our members achieve their fitness goals in this innovative way.”

The new platform takes into account a user’s physical surroundings to ensure a safe workout experience — users can select from a complete virtual reality studio experience, a mixed reality environment that blends the physical and virtual, or a full passthrough setting, where instructors will appear directly in a user’s physical environment. A controller-free experience using hand-tracking technology allows fitness enthusiasts to freely use dumbbells, bikes, rowers and mats.

Xponential has also earned bragging rights as the first to bring Barre and Pilates into virtual reality, using Surface Sync IP, which transforms a dining chair into a virtual Barre. Plans are also underway to use the same technology to reinvent dust-ridden rowers or exercise bikes into smart hardware that can track fitness stats.

Litesport CEO Jeff Morin calls the partnership with the boutique fitness franchisor a “pivotal moment.”

“Together, we are bringing the future of fitness into millions of homes around the world,” Morin said. “A first-of-its-kind experience bringing well-known brick-and-mortar fitness studios into the virtual world. We are diving headfirst into an unsaturated and high-potential space. Our collaboration will revolutionize the way people engage with their health and wellness, making it more accessible and inspiring than ever before.” 

The post Xponential Fitness Taps Litesport To Develop Meta Quest VR App appeared first on Athletech News.

When Meta released its first Quest virtual reality headset back in 2019, fitness wasn’t much of a priority for the tech giant.

In early 2023, Meta completed its acquisition of Within, maker of the popular VR fitness app Supernatural, for a reported $400 million, cementing the tech company’s entry into the space. 

In the four years or so between its first foray into VR and its decision to shell out big bucks for a digital fitness company, Meta noticed something interesting about the VR games its customers were playing on Quest devices: they were helping people get into better shape.

“People started coming in to play games, but they stayed for the fun and they stayed because they were seeing their health outcomes improve,” Anand Dass, Meta’s director of Metaverse content, told Athletech News. ”There was an unexplored variable around fitness that was allowing people to improve their health outcomes. The unexplored variable was fun.”

Dass explains that people get so wrapped up in immersive VR app experiences that they often forget they’re exercising.

“If you go look at the reviews on FitXR, Supernatural or Litesport, people are saying, ‘I didn’t realize I was actually working out, but I was sweating by the end of my playtime and over time I lost ten pounds,’” he says. “Or their biomarkers improved, like blood pressure and blood sugar levels.”

That realization was enough to get Meta interested in making fitness a key part of its VR plans. 

“When we saw that consumers were truly able to change their health outcomes and lead a healthier lifestyle, we knew we should try and do something to serve this audience better,” Dass says. “That was the genesis of our fitness thrust.”

Meta Goes After the 80%

Most people don’t like working out – and most people don’t. It’s an unfortunate fact that the fitness industry has been trying to change for years, without a ton of success. Statistics still show that around 80% of Americans don’t exercise regularly. 

Meta believes making fitness fun – through immersive VR experiences – will finally get that silent majority of the population moving. 

“We think this will expand the wellness market significantly because it’s creating an opportunity in a segment of the population that didn’t work out before,” Dass says of VR fitness. 

VR’s ability to alter time and space and transport people into a fantasy world makes the prospect of working up a sweat a lot more palatable to the average person. Strap on a Quest headset and fire up Supernatural, for example, and within minutes, you can be moving around and dodging virtual objects on the Galapagos Islands or the surface of Mars. 

“You can be on top of volcanoes and you can have an instructor in your living room,” Dass notes. “It can be 10 minutes between your work calls or it can be a bite-sized HIIT workout.”

VR fitness also appeals to groups that want to stay active but don’t traditionally go to the gym. Working parents often prefer to work out with a VR headset, Dass noted, since it’s more convenient for them than finding time to drive to the gym. For older people, the headset presents an opportunity to work out without having to endure the physical and emotional issues that the modern gym presents for people above a certain age. And for beginners or those intimidated by the traditional gym setting, VR is a much more welcoming environment.  

“You’re not judged at all if you’re in your living room,” Dass says.

However, Meta is also targeting the fitness enthusiast with its VR plans. Dass describes what he calls a “blended” approach to working out, with some days in the gym, some days working out with connected fitness equipment like a Peloton bike and some days spent working out in VR. 

“It’s very much a complimentary experience to traditional fitness options,” Dass says of VR. He notes that even dedicated gym-goers sometimes run into dry spells of motivation or deal with time constraints that make it infeasible to travel to the gym or studio for a long workout. 

“There are two audience cohorts that we think about,” Dass says, referring to the larger group of people who don’t exercise regularly as well as the 20% or so of the population already dedicated to fitness. 

A Strategic Acquisition 

Dass described Meta’s decision to buy Within (Supernatural) as a strategic acquisition so it could better understand the fitness space. 

“It’s really hard to innovate and serve an industry unless you know what it is,” he said. “We’re a tech company, we don’t have trainers, we don’t understand how to speak the language of fitness. So for us, the Within acquisition was about building domain knowledge.”

For example, in probing Supernatural’s tech stack, Meta learned how the fitness app incorporates beat-mapping, a phenomenon where music beats queue the physical actions that users need to perform during a workout. The tech company also learned about the highly important role human coaches can play in motivating people to work out. 

“I distinctly remember this from one of the Supernatural experiences I tried, where one of the coaches talks about loss and grief in her life,” Dass shares. “She’s talking about processing her grief and being resilient and persistent. In that moment, I’m thinking, ‘If she can do that, I can persist for another 20 minutes and hit a bunch of targets.’”

“That’s art, not algorithms,” Dass says.

Better Together: Meta’s Collaborative Approach

Despite regulatory concerns about Meta’s acquisition of Within – the FTC sued to block the deal over antitrust concerns – Dass assures that the tech giant plans to take a collaborative approach to VR fitness.

“We’re going to take the stance of partnering and being more open in how we build this as opposed to taking the more vertically integrated approach that we’ve seen taken in the mobile world by some players,” he said. 

Dass noted that Meta has partnered with companies like Les Mills, FitXR and others to build VR fitness experiences, and will continue to do so despite its ownership of Supernatural. 

“The magic is to pair that fitness science that the fitness industry knows with the underlying technology that serves that science to deliver life outcomes,” he said. “That’s how we think of our strategy.” 

What’s Next for VR Fitness?

As Meta works to better understand the fitness space, the company is committed to innovating in ways that promise to make VR fitness even more immersive and fun.

“We have to push hard on the underlying technology stack,” Dass said. “For example, headsets currently don’t work outdoors because they require the bounding box of a room.” 

Meta is also looking into how it can add lower-body workouts to its VR fitness offerings. Currently, the Quest headset only captures head and hand movements.

“There is innovation we can do with machine learning and AI,” Dass said. “Supernatural released a prototype for knee strikes. Now they’ve figured out a way to do ground-based exercises and combine them with hand movements. We’ll push on things like that.”

Meta also plans to push forward on Meta Reality, its version of mixed reality, where the physical and virtual worlds interact to form one experience. Meta Reality offers some exciting possibilities for strength training, including potentially adding weights to VR workouts, a feature that’s not currently available. Moves like wall sits could also be possible using Meta Reality.

True to its spirit of building with others, Meta plans to make as many of its VR and MR innovations as possible available to its outside partners. 

“Whatever we’re building that’s more universally usable, we’re just going to put it into the platform and give it to anybody who wants to build a fitness experience,” Dass says.

The post Meta Pushes Into VR Fitness: Why the Tech Giant Is Just Getting Started appeared first on Athletech News.

Sam Cole didn’t have to think about exercise very much when he was growing up playing sports in New Zealand. For him, being active was a byproduct of getting into the flow of competitive team athletics.

It wasn’t until after he stopped playing rugby post-university that the FitXR founder and CEO had to find other ways of keeping fit. He found that boutique group fitness classes offered a great way to get into what he calls a “flow-like state,” in which the experience is so immersive that he forgets he’s working out.

He began to think about the different elements of high-quality group fitness – a great instructor, engaging environment, motivating music and the opportunity to synchronously work out with other people – and how it could be delivered in a new way to more people.

“When we launched FitXR in 2016, many in the industry were talking about immersive fitness, but not in connection with VR headsets, which were still associated with video gamers. I thought a lot about how to combine a great soundtrack, great lighting effects, a great instructor and great environment. What’s the next thing we could do? We could bring in the visual layer. I kind of merged these two thoughts in my head and was pretty sure you could deliver an amazing experience helping people to get into a flow-like state around exercise via a virtual reality headset.”

Cole and his partners carried the core belief that immersive fitness would get people into a flow-like state into its first product, a boxing app, and soon added four additional modalities: high intensity interval training; dance; combat; and sculpt.
FitXR’s aim is to deliver a holistic and varied fitness experience similar to that of a club with different studios and modalities that target different muscle groups and give different fitness experiences, keeping people engaged and coming back for more. Cole is particularly excited about the variety part.

“In the FitXR boxing experience, for example, you are transported into a virtual environment that has been purposefully designed to deliver its proprietary boxing content, with cues flying towards you on the beat of the music representing different punch moves. The dance studio, by contrast, is a different environment that’s been purpose-built to deliver its dance content. At that studio, you are modeling an instructor who is completing the moves in front of you. And then through body recognition, it’s able to infer how you’re doing those moves against what the instructor is doing, and you are scored accordingly.”

Going With the Flow

Cole identified the four key elements of the FitXR workout that make it so engaging and send customers into a flow-like state. The first is the sense of being transported to another place.

“Our customers report that they put the headset on and are transported to a separate location. This satisfies a lot of customers’ needs around the separation between home and gym. Especially during COVID, many of our customers said that was a really big factor for them.”

The second is the feeling of community. All of the FitXR modalities have asynchronous avatars, which means when you take a class, you look to your left and right and see people who have done that class in Avatar form before you at earlier times. The instructor avatars speak to you and interact with you as an individual, giving a hybrid experience of group fitness and personal training. You have the feeling of doing this together with other people, while getting almost one-on-one coaching, all while being transported to another place.

The visual and gamification elements, in Cole’s opinion, contribute most to the immersive experience. The FitXR boxing classes, choreographed by a team of instructors from places like Rumble, Equinox and Barry’s Bootcamp in New York are, he says,

“Like taking a class in a Manhattan boxing studio, except that cues are flying towards you on the beat of the music in a virtual environment, so it’s even better than standing in a studio and punching a bag. Many of our customers will tell us they get lost in the experience when they put the headset on. They stop looking at the clock and 30 minutes later are drenched in sweat and feeling fantastic, a feeling they never got doing exercise before.”

From Gamers to Grandmas

FitXR has successfully shifted its customer base from predominantly 18-year-old male gamers to an audience that is now 35-plus and skews female. It serves a broad range of ages and fitness abilities, from the 13-year-old kid who hates exercise to the 65-year-old who has been exercising her whole life but uses FitXR as the most fun part of her existing routine.

This demographic shift has helped the headset companies expand their customer base as well. FitXR invests a lot of time and effort into its relationships with the hardware suppliers. “If you were in London in early April, you would see FitXR billboards and bus shelters that Meta are paying for, because it’s mutually beneficial for them to drive awareness of FitXR and to promote fitness in general as a use case for the underlying hardware.”

Gaming still represents somewhat of a gateway drug for VR fitness, however, and Cole attributes some of FitXR’s success to newer video games that get people moving.

“You’ve gone from gaming on your PlayStation using your thumbs to the most popular game in virtual reality today, which is Beat Saber. Think of Guitar Hero with lightsabers. It’s great. And what many people do is they’ll buy a headset to play Beat Saber, and they’ll be slicing away at these musical cues and having a great time and suddenly realizing that they’re getting a little bit of a workout. And then this sparks the thought in people’s heads about using a headset for fitness, to get a workout. Then they wonder what specific fitness product they could engage with and check out FitXR.”

Cole thinks people’s impressions of what a gamer is have already started to change.

“I think as more and more gamers use virtual reality to game using their entire body, whether it’s lightsabers or running around virtual spaces, I wonder whether you get to this world where e-sport athletes in the future will more closely resemble athletes of today, because they’ll have to be so fit and strong to be able to perform at the highest level in these active virtual reality games. So I think there could be a very interesting crossover point.”

Is This the Answer for the 80%?

Cole feels that many FitXR customers were previously conditioned to think that, because it’s always been something that they’ve struggled to engage with, exercise isn’t for them.

“For those customers, I think this is where we really start to see the impact of the power of immersive fitness. Because you can present fitness in a way that feels easier, that feels more engaging, that has all of the same efficacy as traditional fitness. Many of our customers tell us they never found exercise engaging until they tried FitXR and were able to transport themselves into a virtual world in which the experience feels so fun and engaging that they start to realize that they can exercise. For a lot of people, it’s just about finding the right movement for you at whatever point in your journey that you’re on.”

At around $10 a month, FitXR, like others in the VR workout space, is extremely affordable. People who don’t already own a Meta Quest II or similar headset, however, need to make the additional hardware investment. Considering the cost to buy high-quality exercise equipment plus a subscription, or the monthly cost to belong to a boutique fitness studio, it’s still a good value.

“We’ve tried to not just serve the 20% who exercise regularly, but also serve the 80%,” Cole said. “We’re ready to serve everyone. With a mission to broaden the amount of people who are exercising, we want it to be priced accordingly.”

The Future

Technology is continuously evolving, and FitXR, whose name contains the acronym for “Extended Reality,” is keeping pace. Said Cole: “We are seeing technology moving from pure virtual reality, or VR, where you’re entirely immersed in a virtual world, to a thing called mixed reality, or MR, where you can start to bring in elements of your surroundings.”

He explained that with mixed reality, you could have a headset on but also see, if you wanted to, some or all of the things in the actual room you are in. This combination of VR and AR enables an experience in which you take your real surroundings and add a visual layer to it that transports you to a different place which, according to Cole, opens up many possibilities from a modality perspective.

“With these mixed reality headsets, you can suddenly bring in the bike, you can see your actual feet, you can see the resistance toggle, you can see the handlebars, and then on the top half, instead of looking down at a screen, everything above the handlebars can be wrapped in a completely virtual environment. So we’re really excited about what this enables us to do. It’s not just bikes we could integrate with, it’s kettlebells, dumbbells, elliptical machines, Pilates reformers, TRX machines, anything.”

He said that his company has no intention of getting into the equipment business, so is having conversations with many different potential hardware partners.

“There are many amazing companies out there for whom we can come along and build virtual reality content that could take this to the next level or just provide additional value for their existing customer base.”

Many Fitness Players Entering the Space

Connected VR Fitness platform Holofit, by Swiss Company Holodia, is another popular VR fitness platform that connects a headset with compatible hardware made by Technogym, WaterRower, StairMaster and others.

Litesport, formerly known as Liteboxer, just added a VR-enable strength training app to its portfolio. The Les Mills BodyCombat VR has a huge following. Win Reality’s VR app that helps improve baseball and softball skills is extremely popular among younger customers. And the roster keeps growing. Many large gym chains are adding virtual workouts using VR headsets to their hybrid workout offerings.

Earlier this year Meta acquired Within, whose VR fitness product Supernatural differs from FitXR in a few key ways, according to Cole.

“Supernatural has real-life instructors represented by video format and a slightly different and narrower range of classes than FitXR. They have one core experience, which is their slicing mode, and then they have a boxing module, which they added on top of that. So we feel like Supernatural is our closest competitor in this space, but we’re going in pretty different directions.”

And then there’s Apple. The Cupertino, California-based behemoth recently announced it will begin selling a mixed reality headset early next year for a cool $3500. Many believe the headset debut will accompany enhanced offerings from

Apple Fitness+ and strengthen the Apple Fitness ecosystem.

As with most new technologies, however, the more options people have, and the more innovation happening, the more people will begin to participate in XR Fitness, offering growth opportunities for the entire industry.

Cole and his team like to say that their competition isn’t other fitness brands, it’s the couch.

“It’s a really hard challenge. But it’s also a really great mission. People in our company, many of whom come from video game backgrounds, get really engaged with this, and they love coming to work, knowing that we’re trying to make the world a better place by giving people more access to fitness and trying to get more people to have a habit around fitness.”

The post The Future of Fitness? FitXR’s Mission To Get People Off the Couch appeared first on Athletech News.

Asensei, a leading provider of movement recognition and coaching intelligence, has unveiled an exciting extension to its Asensei.ai software development kit (SDK) called Asensei XR. The new addition brings a range of extended reality (XR) capabilities to the SDK, revolutionizing the virtual and augmented reality landscape for fitness and health developers.

One of the major advancements offered by Asensei XR is integration with popular game development engines, Unity and Unreal Engine. The integration opens up new possibilities for developers, enabling them to create immersive and interactive experiences using Asensei’s cutting-edge technology.

With support for iOS, Android, Web, as well as cross-platform development platforms like Ionic, React and Flutter, the Asensei SDK ensures compatibility across a wide range of devices.

Positional tracking is another standout feature of Asensei XR. By utilizing the body as a controller, users can engage in “Exergames” that respond to their movements in real-time. Whether it’s moving left, right, forward, backward, jumping, crouching or performing specific sport or fitness techniques, the SDK accurately tracks and translates these actions into the virtual environment.

Real-time overlays are yet another exciting feature offered by Asensei XR. Users can now overlay real-time video capture on smart TVs and connected mirrors, enhancing their workout experience with animations and infographics that respond to their posture and movement. The visual feedback helps users maintain proper form and technique.

A (virtual) world of possibilities

Virtual fitness equipment is an innovative addition to Asensei XR, allowing equipment brands to transform CAD models into interactive digital equipment. Users can track punches, kicks and other movements accurately, with virtual equipment serving as targets or obstacles to overcome.

To further enhance the user experience, Asensei XR enables the integration of athlete and coach avatars. These on-screen avatars are rigged with motion-capture data from Asensei’s extensive exercise library, allowing them to demonstrate exercises and techniques with precision. Users can engage in natural language conversations with these avatars, thanks to Asensei Voice, which utilizes synthetic voice synthesis of real athletes, coaches and celebrities.

Collaborations with leading fitness brands

Top brands have recognized the potential of Asensei XR. Litesport, formally Liteboxer, creates some of the world’s most immersive workouts combining hit music, game dynamics, and expert training.

“We were approached to showcase Litesport on upcoming mixed-reality headsets that are not yet in the market”, says Jeff Morin, founder and CEO of Litesport. “However, we needed full body-tracking, exercise recognition and real-time feedback driven by form-tracking. The Asensei team worked quickly and effectively to deliver us a sample Unity app that made AI integration a breeze. This will be a game-changer for XR sport and fitness apps.”

PowerBlock, the first brand to create adjustable dumbbells nearly 30 years ago, is an industry pioneer. PowerBlock expandable dumbbells are trusted in elite training rooms and facilities, and now will be available digitally, including to customers in VR/AR.

“With Asensei fitness equipment detection, not only can Asensei XR recognize when someone is holding PowerBlock dumbbells, but identify exactly how much weight is loaded on them using advanced computer vision and machine learning.” says Mattson Towley, CEO of PowerBlock. “Incorporating Powerblock dumbbells into a mixed reality experience, virtual trainers will not only know how well you’re moving, but how much weight you’re moving.

Towley called the innovation an “astonishing leap forward in virtual strength training.”

As the demand for VR and AR experiences continues to rise, Asensei is at the forefront of empowering developers to create groundbreaking fitness and health applications. With Asensei XR, users can look forward to a future where VR and AR seamlessly integrate with their fitness routines, delivering personalized coaching and immersive experiences.

The post Asensei XR Could Be a Game-Changer for VR Fitness appeared first on Athletech News.

Litesport, formerly known as Liteboxer, is one of the leading trainer-led virtual reality (VR) fitness brands. Although the fitness app launched a little over a year ago, it has had almost one million installs to date. The brand started out as mainly a rhythm-based, gamified boxing workout, and has since expanded to include strength exercises that can be done with real dumbbells.

Athletech News decided to see what all the excitement was about and try Litesport. 

Within one minute of putting on your Meta Quest 1 or 2, you’re transported from your living room to a boxing gym. Once you select your Litesport workout, your virtual trainer appears directly in front of you via passthrough augmented reality (AR), and the workout begins. 

Workouts are generally around 20 minutes long, and can be in the form of strength, drills or boxing, among others. For the strength workouts, one can use either virtual or real dumbbells. The workouts are more endurance-based, focusing on reps and sets as opposed to speed. Throughout the workout, an icon of the body tracks which muscle groups were used. Long-term strength goals include workout programs, like Litesport’s Strength Series, Hypertrophy and Muscular Endurance Programs. More generally, workouts can be stacked together using the product’s “playlist” option, which creates a more consistent flow. 

Pros

Litesport is perfect for those who might be intimidated to go to the gym, or need an at-home but gamified introduction to strength-based training. Its immersive nature truly feels like a personal training session. The instructors were engaging and accessible, and provided thorough instructions throughout each Litesport workout. The shorter lengths of the workouts, not generally more than 20 minutes, were challenging but flew by. 

For the strength workouts, the hand-tracking capabilities were incredibly accurate. Their focus on more endurance-based workouts promoted good form and general safety, which is incredibly important for beginners. 

For the gamified drills, with ropes and virtual obstacles, I hadn’t had that much fun working out in a long time, particularly at home. Shaking up one’s routine with such a fun fitness option could improve one’s accountability more generally. 

Although Litesport is no longer merely boxing-focused, the boxing continues to be a highlight of the app. Punch tracks make the workout time fly by, particularly with such engaging music. The app tracks streaks and good hits, among other measurements, creating accuracy and force incentives. 

Cons

For those who dislike subscription services, Litesport comes with a monthly price of $18.99 per month for all workouts and features, with a 7-day free trial. However, there’s also a free membership that provides limited access to content. 

The headset can also get a little sweaty and foggy while working out, especially if one really puts in effort. However, the workouts are mainly around 20 minutes long to account for that potential issue. 

Overall

Litesport is likely best suited for those who feel intimidated by a gym, dislike traveling to a gym or need an immersive experience to stay motivated. Gamers who want to step into a different style of gaming while building strength might also love the product. Overall, it was one of the more fun and engaging workouts I had experienced at home in a long time, and I believe it could be a great fit for many types of athletes and gamers.

The post Product of the Week: Litesport Will Add Some Fun to Your Workout appeared first on Athletech News.

Litesport, formerly known as Liteboxer, has announced a transformative rebrand to reflect its evolution and continued expansion into workout modes beyond boxing. The leading trainer-led VR fitness company is disrupting the industry with its latest addition to the app: the first-of-its-kind Strength Training mode that uses cutting-edge VR features to enable real trainers to appear in the user’s own space and provide effective dumbbell-based workouts. This milestone demonstrates the company’s growth and commitment to helping at-home fitness enthusiasts build strength while increasing the app’s appeal to a wider audience.

The Liteboxer VR fitness app launched just over a year ago, and since then, the app has evolved and expanded to include Boxing, Total Body, and now, Strength workouts. The app has over 940,000 installs to date, with a CEO and Founder, Jeff Morin, who is delighted with the progress. Morin said, “The app has changed so much in the past 12 months. We added full body workouts with the launch of Total Body six months ago, and it became obvious that this made-for-VR, trainer-led experience is really something special. People love it, and it’s a huge differentiator for us.”

Litesport’s unique offering provides a personalized and interactive workout experience that is led by world-class trainers. Members enjoy the one-on-one coaching experience, which they might not have access to otherwise due to time, cost, or location. Morin explains, “We are unique in the space where the trainer is in front of you, showing what you do for the entire workout. Not just an intro, not a voiceover, but right in front of you – showing you good form, sweating, and doing the work. Now take that, add the interactivity and the feedback made possible by working out in the headset, and we have something pretty addictive. That’s what we’re all about.”

The new Strength Training mode is different from the other workouts in the app as it does not provide a score, leaderboard, or match results. Instead, trainers provide guidance throughout the workout, targeting 16 key muscles, which are showcased on the interactive muscle map. Members have the ability to filter content by specific muscle groups to change the focus of each workout to reach their goals. The mode is intended to motivate members to compete with themselves, improving their muscle map and getting stronger with each workout.

Litesport’s app is available to download in the Oculus Store for $18.99/month, with a 7-day free trial. There is also an option to sign up for a free membership, which provides limited access to content. The app is compatible with Meta Quest, Quest 2, and Quest Pro headsets, providing immersive and fun workouts in the comfort of your own home.

Litesport’s rebrand demonstrates the company’s commitment to expanding its offering beyond boxing and creating an accessible, inviting, and convenient environment for any and all fitness enthusiasts. With the addition of the Strength Training modality, the brand continues to lead the way in the VR fitness industry, providing an innovative and personalized workout experience that helps users build strength and achieve their fitness goals.

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