Beat Saber is a fun workout

I heard about Beat Saber a few years ago — think “Guitar Hero” but you swing virtual light sabers at notes instead of playing them on a plastic guitar.

My wife got me an Oculus Quest 2 for my birthday a few weeks ago, which is a VR headset with a few controllers, and it’s one of the main systems that Beat Saber supports.

Here’s a quick video that shows a bit about how the game works:

While it’s intended for fun, and it is, it can be quite a good workout too. I’ve been looking some something low-impact to do on days between my Zwift runs, and this is a good one to mix in. It’s literally no impact on the legs, but a great cardio workout once you get good enough at it.

Be an expert

I’ve only been at it for a few days, so I’m not too skilled in the game yet. The general consensus is that you should be at “expert” level (4th out of 5 levels) to make it engaging enough to be a decent workout. I’ll get there eventually.

To really take it to another level, here is “JoshDub” playing on Expert+, with a neat green screen (and some software tricks) to make for a very impressive video:

This isn’t a game you can just pick up for most video game systems, but if you ever look into one of the VR systems (which are getting less expensive and better every year), this is worth picking up.