Virtual Reality Meets Celebrity Fitness Trainer

Technology has been transforming the health and fitness space for the past decade with wearables, apps, and equipment. VR has also been slowly making its way into the fitness industry and has the potential to transform home fitness. This industry is fast growing and reached a global market size of 16.4 billion USD in 2022.

Billy Blanks is undoubtably one of the most famous names in fitness with the creation of his high impact martial arts inspired TaiBo workouts. Not only has he been in over 20 movies, sold millions of workout videos, and trained celebrity clients, he is now moving into the tech space with a first of its kind, innovative, virtual reality experience.

Taibo Reboot uses AI to track your stamina, power, cardio, heart rate, and creates a custom program to help users improve using the techniques that Billy has meticulously crafted throughout his career. No matter what your level of fitness is, you can enjoy over 60 hours of game play broken up into 3 minute mini games in settings like the beach, gym, temple, dojo, and tropical walk. “People are always surprised at the workout you can get in such a short burst,” says Chief of Marketing, Diedre Hackman.

There is also a unique social element to the game. You can join tribes led by 175 certified taibo fitness trainers from around the world and compete in different challenges. “This is a unique aspect we are bringing to VR fitness, our team is bringing fitness to the masses like it has never been done before.”

This innovation is being developed by Montreal based XR development studio, XPR Labs. Although it can be used on any headset, it has been specially designed to work with PICO XR. When asked the biggest challenge in the development, Hackman discussed the pressure to ensure everything was the highest possible calibre from graphics, audio, and interactions. “XPR is highly experienced launching world class VR experiences, so there weren’t many challenges on the technical side, however when you are working with a name like Billy Blanks you want to ensure everything is perfect and reflects his expertise.”

The team has been socializing the experience at different martial art shows and received amazing feedback. They are now excited to bring it to the gaming community at Game Con Canada in Edmonton on June 15^th where Billy blanks and Gaming Streamer, Avori Henderson will take the stage with Tai bo enthusiasts. Attendees will be able to see the program on the big screen during the demo, and also have a chance to check out the tech at the XPR booth throughout the weekend.

XPR is now looking for early adopters to download the game for free and provide feedback before their full launch in November for Black Friday.