ExerCube vs. Personal Trainer

“HIIT” the ExerCube: Comparing the Effectiveness of Functional High-Intensity Interval Training in Conventional vs. Exergame-Based Training

“…Furthermore, flow was significantly higher rated for the ExerCube condition (assessed by FSS) and especially the items "absorption by activity" and "perceived importance." These results match findings of the ExerCube study by Martin-Niedecken et al (2019), wherein participants reported that they were totally immersed by the game and had to focus on its mechanics to succeed (i.e., a flow experience). In contrast, participants were much more focused on their body with the study's personal coach condition, as they had to concentrate to keep up and perform the exercises correctly.…”

“…The company is open to making the ExerCube available to researchers as a research platform. Thus, the first early stage functional fitness game prototype designed for this system was found to be on par with personal training regarding immersion, motivation, and flow as shown in a previous empirical study (Martin-Niedecken and Mekler, 2018;Martin-Niedecken et al, 2019). This previous study with the ExerCube (Martin-Niedecken and Mekler, 2018;Martin-Niedecken et al, 2019) largely employed self-reported and subjective measures, leading to a research gap with regards to its objective training intensity.…”

“…Since the focus of the presented study was to compare the physical training intensity, we employed the same algorithm for cognitive game difficulty adjustment as used by Martin-Niedecken et al (2019). The main cognitive challenge of the game related to how early players were visually instructed about the direction (right or left) of the upcoming exercise (e.g., a yellow gate rotates to the right for a high touch).…”

“…So far, only few studies have investigated exergames in the context of cHIIT (de Bruin et al, 2019;Farrow et al, 2019;Haller et al, 2019;Keesing et al, 2019) and none in fHIIT. This is possibly because few exergames feature both (1) an effective training concept that is comparable to cHIIT, and (2) an attractive game design to sustain players' motivation (Martin-Niedecken et al, 2019). We believe that this lack of holistic integration of both aspects in exergames is partly why currently little evidence exists for long-term motivation and training effects in exergame-based training (Best, 2015).…”

“…One exergame specifically designed in terms of this holistic approach is the ExerCube: a commercial immersive fitness game setting by Sphery Ltd. (Martin-Niedecken and Mekler, 2018;Martin-Niedecken et al, 2019). The company is open to making the ExerCube available to researchers as a research platform.…”