Motivating people to perform better in exergames: competition in virtual environments

Repetitive indoor exercises as running on a treadmill or cycling on an exercise bike use to be tedious, meanwhile immersive virtual environments can bring a greater incentive especially when combined with other sources of motivation such as competition. In this work we introduce Running Wheel, an exergame with both single player and competitive modes with real time capture of heartbeat rhythm and speed of the treadmill. Two hypotheses were tested: (a) there is difference between users that ran with the competitive mode versus the single player mode; and (b) there is difference in performance depending on the kind of competitor picked. We evaluated the system with 12 volunteers which performed at least 6 jogging sessions. Results show that participants got strongly motivated and most of them tried to overcome their limitations and overtake others which in turn led to more effort, perceived by an increase in heartbeat rhythm.