With more on this story, Sputnik spoke to Sam Kirk, an associate lecturer at Leeds Beckett University.
Sputnik: In terms of exercise, can active video games help people stay fit during self-isolation? Is it just as good as going to the gym?
Sam Kirk: I think there are two parts of that. As in what active games can do for people who are already sort of reasonably fit reasonably strong, they can keep us ticking over, particularly on the cardiovascular front but they would struggle to keep people strong if that had been the focus of their training - as progress in challenging active video games is typically something that's more in the muscular endurance realm, something like more reps and more time, that kind of thing. The jury's out on how beneficial we are for the development of fitness in non-novices compared to someone with a bit more experience. I'm of the opinion they won't be enough of a stimulus to keep driving progress.
When you compare it to the gym, I would say active video games are beneficial for novices to a point. Ultimately, the body adapts to the demands sort of placed on it and the demands placed on the body for active video games, at least for the moment, will eventually not be enough to keep up in further progress. This is where the gym really comes into its own. There are more options and more possibilities to keep driving progress. I think once you hit the high end of the novice level, and once you've learned the main movement buttons, it's time to move your train up a level and that level is not yet available through the current crop of active video games.
Sputnik: What are the benefits of keeping fit during self-isolation; both mentally and physically?
Sam Kirk: The benefits were the same as they've always been it's just now those benefits are more at the forefront of people's minds particularly immune system defence. Aside from that we have the benefit for you know mental well being, feeling good about what we do and feeling good about ourselves. Feeling like we are making progress feeling alert and engaged. The physical side is to develop in our physical fitness, seeing that we are capable of getting stronger, faster, more flexible, that kind of thing, as well as staving off disease like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Also mechanical issues like low back pain. I think these are things that are still despite coronavirus taking centre stage, these are things that are still very real and still a huge huge problem that people need to be aware of as well. The mental side of it, particularly playing games, the social nature of games and indie gamers themselves is a huge benefit to people but now more than ever.
It's a way to create this epic moment that you can talk about indefinitely through time. Creating lasting bonds through like fun collaboration and challenge as well as through failure and adversity and a way to have a sort of competitive outlet if you're that way inclined and you've lost that through not been able to play sports or anything. The big perk as well is this sort of active engagement that's required to play a game - it needs their input - you need to be engaged. That's not always the same as say if you're doing a 12-hour Netflix binge, for example, where you could sort of passively engage and just veg out on the couch. It helps keep us sharp and there's a real sense of community amongst people playing the same game as well.
Sam Kirk: I think it's really important. Everybody’s habits have sort of disappeared over the last couple of weeks and now when we're at home we can build these new routines where maybe we can get up and do a yoga stretching base routine through an active video game like Ring Fit Adventure. We can go do some work and then at lunchtime we can have food and maybe play another little bit of an activity video. When we're allowed to go outside and do exercise, we can use for example Pokémon Go to facilitate that as well. So being able to build that into a routine and block our work and our exercise amongst is really beneficial for helping people stay sane and mentally well because everything is up in the air at the moment.
