The World Health Organization (WHO) defines physical activity as “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that require energy expenditure”. A moderate amount of physical activity on most days of the week has been shown to have significant health benefits. Amongst many others, it reduces the risk of obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, as well as colon cancer. Furthermore, the impact of physical activity on mental health is essential. Physical activity may relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety and improve one’s mood. Nevertheless, physical inactivity remains a major health problem all over the world.

Digital fitness content is increasingly emerging in many online gyms and fitness applications. This can be a good alternative for those who cannot go to the gym for different reasons. However, although this digital alternative to classic gyms has clear and promising advantages, it still fails to appeal to a large number of individuals due to limitations concerning direct interaction and collaboration. Most people miss especially the feature of being present with other friends and colleagues in the same fitness room or environment. Hence, existing fitness solutions do not significantly promote physical activity.

Therefore, in this project group, we propose a novel alternative to both classic gyms and digital fitness streaming services, that is, Virtual Reality (VR). The main goal of the project group is to provide a VR environment for personalized and collaborative VR training.