Virtual reality cycling leads to less muscle pain, finds study

A new study has found that people cycling in an interactive virtual reality environment experience less muscle pain than those who undertake similar rides but with a static picture.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Georgia, sought to build on previous research which found that undertaking exercise with the help of virtual reality helped patients, including people with chronic back pain, better manage their condition.

Doctoral student Carly Wender of the College of Education’s department of kinesiology, decided to investigate whether the use of virtual reality would likewise reduce pain experienced during exercise.

94 people participated in the study, all of them wearing a virtual reality headset while undertaking three 30-second sprints, with a four-minute recovery period in between.

Half of the subjects were shown a changing urban landscape to enable them to feel as though the were riding through a city. The rest were given a static picture of the same cityscape and asked to imagine that they were riding through it.

The former group experienced between 12 and 13 per cent less pain in their quadriceps during the second and third sprints compared to those who were shown the static picture.

Both groups achieved a similar level of cycling performance, meaning that relief from pain was not linked to potentially reduced cycling performance in the group shown the interactive cityscape.

Wender said: “This experiment is an important first step in the future of combining exercise and virtual reality.

“With continued exploration, this combination may increase adherence to and effectiveness of physical activity for healthy individuals, as well as for those with various hindrances to physical activity.”

Co-author Sun Joo Ahn, associate professor of advertising and founding director of the university’s  Games and Virtual Environments Lab in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said: “This is one of the first studies to demonstrate the ability of VR to reduce pain when engaging in highly intensive exercising that is known to induce significant pain.”

“Given the rising interest in VR technology for sports training, these findings lend empirical support to its potentials.”

Another co-author, Pat O’Connor, professor of exercise science and co-director of the university’s Exercise Psychology Lab, added:  “While research on combining virtual reality and cycling is in its infancy, the technology holds promise for enhancing training among both recreational and sport-oriented cyclists.”