That virtual virtuous feeling

If lack of access has been your reason for not going to your local gym, Kelly Mullan points out that this may no longer be a valid excuse

Companies sometimes complain to Disability Now that our choice of impaired reviewer hasn’t allowed their product to shine in the best possible light. I imagined the Virtual Gym would be rightly wary of a depressed person reviewing their online wares so the fact that, after some initial frustrations, I enjoyed using it and was actually smiling and laughing at myself whilst jumping around like an eejit surprised me. And that raising of the eyebrows must have burned off at least one calorie as well.

The online class that had the welcome side effect of a workout for the facial muscles involved in grinning and gurning was called Street Dance and promised: “Chris is going to break down and teach you all the moves for you to be able to shake it like Beyonce, pop it like Usher and glide like Justin.” Having lurked outside the dance studio of my local gym feeling too self-conscious to go in, I was curious to give it a go in the privacy of my own home. I looked ridiculous and had a great time and in an unexpected added bonus, the creaking of furniture as I leapt around masked any creaking of my rusty joints.

As a cancer patient with bipolar disorder there’s a list as long as my face of reasons why I should be getting fit: exercise may decrease risk of cancer recurrence by 50 per cent, would doubtless improve my post-mastectomy body image and it’s recommended for combating depression and fatigue. So what’s been stopping me? Well, just the catch-22 that depression and fatigue aren’t conducive to exercise. I’ve been a member of a local gym for six months and have been there about six times, so I thought being able to exercise at home might be the answer.

I had a few false starts with the Virtual Gym. The browsers on my Mac didn’t support the website so I had to borrow a laptop to use it.

Then I was looking forward to doing some yoga but found that the Virtual Gym only offers prenatal yoga and post-natal yoga. Then it took me a while to figure out how to download the videos: this delay could’ve been avoided if I’d visited the “How It Works” page of the website.

Finally, I found something to motivate me to exercise: I offered to review a virtual gym for webwatch and the haunting image of a blank page in Disability Now scared me into action. It worked but it’s not a long-term motivational tool.

• virtualgym.tv – subscription rates: £5 per month, £14 per quarter, £25 per half
year or £45 per year