Happy New Year! It’s the time of year when millions of people wake up and realize the damage they did to their bodies over the holidays. We are all guilty of it. Sometimes it’s okay to relax a little and enjoy life with family and friends, especially during the dark, cold days of winter.
Now is the time to get back on track and get a new record streak of workouts! Consistency is the secret to fitness results. Keep it simple and just focus on getting your workout battles done every 48 – 72 hours. Your body will thank you and your minions will increase in power with every unmissed workout that you do. That’s a two for one deal!
Our team has been working hard on a lot of new features to make your Black Box VR experience as fun, effective, and bug-free as possible! We have recently launched a big update to address some of the most pressing issues. In the next few weeks, we will have another big update that will improve the onboarding experience dramatically. Following that update, we plan to have new exercises, new Champion special abilities, new Minion streak upgrades, and a lot more.
Thank you for being a founding Black Box VR athlete! Looking forward to seeing your transformation pictures over the next few months. Please continue to send us your feedback!
Thanks,
Ryan and Preston
Co-Founders and Black Box VR Athletes
Black Box VR Athlete of the Month
Username: SvenDiesel
Hero level: 21
Arena level: Arena 10 – Gold League
Fun personal facts: Play music in my spare time.
Background: Busy professional.
Why I love BBVR: BBVR gives me an immediate result to focus on – winning my match – that replaces the amorphous goal of getting stronger. It miraculously distracts you from the fact that you’re lifting weights.
Physical results so far: Dropped 20 lbs and 12% of my body fat since starting!
Favorite Champion: Rock dude. The game is right – he is an excellent blocker.
Favorite direct damage exercise: Overhead press – It is challenging and damages more than one opponent at a time.
Gameplay tip: Defeat your opponent’s first wave of heroes before deploying your own each round.
Battle Update
Ahoy Black Box Heroes!
We’re closing in on having a totally new, story-driven onboarding experience for new users. This is our first serious foray into the backstory of the Black Box universe, and we are excited to show it to you.
The new architecture behind onboarding will give us the ability to unlock boss battles, unique gameplay modes, and more interesting content and rewards. We even envision campaign modes where you could level up and learn about the backstory of your favorite character!
January specifically will see a new, much more stable build with lots of quality-of-life improvements, as well as a new build of the app enabling our first social features! Expect these to grow over time with things like teams, unique team-based challenges and rewards, leaderboards, and more!
Keep crushing it,
“Captain” Duane Mathes
SVP of Game Development
Black Box VR
Exercise Science
AWESOME: A new study on exercise and virtual reality was revealed in December. They found that even with a non-gamified virtual reality experience (they were simply biking through a “pleasant environment”), users were able to exercise harder and for longer and improve their physical health more quickly than without the VR headset. Immersive technology is powerful.
Now imagine putting that power together with the addictive qualities of video games and the competitive/cooperative nature of eSports. You might just have a world-changing innovation on your hands.
Highlights:
“Research has shown that exercise among college-aged persons has dropped over recent years (Lindahl, 2015; Sheppard, 2016). Many factors could be contributing to this reduction in exercise including large workloads, the need to work during school, or perhaps technology use. A number of recent studies are showing the benefits of using virtual reality systems in exercise and are demonstrating that the use of such technology can lead to an increase in the number of young adults engaging in exercise.”
“Although technology is now essential to our lives, the use of technology has often caused barriers to human health. The use of VR systems has the potential to change this trend. Combining VR systems with exercise can create a new outlet for young adults. The use of this technology has the potential to reduce stress, boost the effectiveness of exercise, and be more enjoyable than a standard work out.”
“The data collected led to the conclusion that working out while wearing a virtual reality headset will lead to a higher heart rate, and in turn can lead to burning more calories during a workout. The study also found that participants who wore the virtual reality headset were able to remove themselves from their bodily sensations allowing them to workout longer.”
Full study: http://rua.ua.es/dspace/handle/10045/99841
Hero Trainer of the Month
Username: nitzia1994
Hero Level: 13
Arena: 8 Silver League
Background: I am originally from San Diego, CA and moved to San Francisco about 7 years ago. I earned my Bachelors in Kinesiology with an emphasis in movement science and I am currently working on my Masters in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Sociocultural Studies. My goal is to apply what I have learned to reach populations that are currently not physically active, or who are usually excluded from participating in physical activity. Analyze the barriers as to why certain populations are not active and solve how we can include these populations and get them moving!
Why I love Black Box VR: It is innovative! There are endless possibilities when it comes to Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality will revolutionize and redefine what we think “fitness” is. I loved being a part of that opening team in San Francisco and learning how everything operates and functions. I am not a gamer. The only thing I have ever played is Grand Theft Auto but I love the Black Box VR workout game. It really pushes me and because I am so focused on trying to win the battle, I can push my body to perform in a way I wouldn’t at the gym.
Physical results so far: My power and strength before came from my lower body but since starting to work out at Black Box my upper body has gotten significantly stronger.
Favorite Champion: I have a soft spot for SUNBIRD, because of the damage it does in such a short period of time. I always try and deploy 2 at the same time. The damage to my opponents always works in my favor.
Favorite direct damage exercise: Rows!!! I can do rows for a whole workout!
Gameplay Tip: Always wait until your opponent sends out a champion because usually, they send out the same champion at the start of every round and that way you will be able to destroy it and have more elixir.
Personal fun fact: I love taking pictures of just about anything as I will walk around San Francisco. I also really like going to concerts. I try and go to one concert per month.
Fitness Tip
How can you make sure that you get your next workout done on time? Pre-schedule it.
A lot of our members have told us how valuable the scheduling aspect of Black Box VR is. It may seem like a pain to have to plan ahead and to make it to the gym at an exact time, but studies show that pre-planning a workout makes it way more likely that it will actually get done. It’s easy to wake up on a random Friday and tell yourself that you will workout “some time today”. The day gets hectic and next thing you know you are tired and in the mood for Netflix. You can always go tomorrow, right? That’s how fitness results are lost.
As soon as you finish a workout battle, open the app and schedule your next one. You’ll be sure to get the booth time you want and it will set an exact time for your next epic match. Hold that time on your calendar and don’t allow anything to get in the way.
Consistent workouts every week are guaranteed to give you the body and health that you desire. It’s worth it.
