Effects of immersive virtual reality on the heart rate of athlete’s warm-up

An adequate warm-up prior to intensive exercise can bring benefits to athletes, these requirements may vary depending on the physical activity and the training needs. The immersive virtual reality could have benefits in the warm-up and it can be determined by physiological data of the athlete. This work presents a mobile virtual reality application to stimulate the warm-up of an athlete using a standard treadmill, where the developed application is composed of a pleasant and stimulating environment. A Smartphone and the Gear VR are used as an HMD device, and wireless headphones are placed in the users, in addition, the heart rate of the athletes is monitored using a Polar H7 sensor. Experimental results are obtained in athletes with similar characteristics and conditions, identified a direct relation of the virtual environment with the pulsations per minute (ppm), denoting pulsations greater than usual in case of the stimulating environment and lower pulsations for the pleasant environment. Finally, a usability test is performed that shows the level of sociability of the system. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.