Influence of Cycling Exercise with Different Virtual Reality Systems on Physiological Responses in College Students

This study aims to explore the influence of cycling exercise under different virtual reality systems on physiological and subjective responses of college students, so as to provide a recommendation for the application of virtual reality exercise training among college students.

This was a randomized, cross-controlled trial, and conducted at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in a University Hospital. This study enrolled 13 health college students, aged from 20-24 years. Every subject underwent cycling exercise training in three different conditions, including immersive virtual reality (IVR), desktop virtual reality (DVR) and traditional bicycle training without virtual reality (non-virtual reality, NVR). The primary outcome measure was heart rate variability (HRV). Secondary outcome measures included heart rate (HR), oxygen saturation (SpO₂), blood pressure (BP) every 5 minutes during cycling, the score of the Profile of Mood States (POMS), Virtual Reality Symptom Questionnaire (VRSQ) collected before and after exercise, and ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory (ITC-SOPI) after exercise only. SPSS 26.0 was used for statistical analysis, and the significant difference level was set as p 0.05.

A total of 13 subjects (3 males, 10 females) were included in this study, with average age 22.06±1.21 years. There were no statistically significant differences in HRV, HR, SpO₂ and fatigue in three exercise training conditions (p > 0.05), but the vagus nerve excitability showed a higher trend under the immersive virtual reality system. The scores of the VRSQ and POMS in the IVR group were significantly higher than those in the NVR and DVR groups (p 0.05). In ITC-SOPI, there were significant differences in Spatial Presence, Engagement, Ecological Validity and Negative Effects dimension under IVR, DVR and NVR conditions (p 0.001).

This study shows that there is no significant difference in physiological response of college students under different virtual reality system cycling exercise training. However, compared with traditional cycling training, virtual reality system cycling exercise training has a higher freshness, which can better motivate college students to participate in cycling training and improve their compliance to exercise. The limitation of this study is the small sample size, which should be expanded for further research.

This study suggested that virtual reality cycling exercise training did not increase serious adverse events, and increased the interest of college students in sports, suggesting that it should be considered in the future exercise programs for college students to promote health.