We’ve all felt it at some point — a twinge of wrist pain, a sore neck, perhaps an unusual fatigue. A byproduct of living a sedentary lifestyle (AKA being a gamer) is that sometimes, taking care of yourself and your body falls by the wayside.
Physical health can seem secondary when you’re focused on virtual characters in virtual worlds, but health and wellness impacts every facet of our lives. An evening defusing bombs (or defusing tensions in team chat) definitely isn’t as physically demanding as an evening at the gym — but there’s still a physical toll. More than that, there’s a mental one. It’s also a common misconception that encouraging gamers to be healthy just consists of shutting their devices off and forcing them to go touch grass once in a while. In reality, health and wellness regimes for gamers are typically tailored specifically to target mental capacity and focus.
The importance of keeping players and talent healthy both physically and mentally isn’t lost on esports organizations like Team Liquid, and many of them achieve this via things like nutrition and supplements along with exercise. But if you don’t have the access to the same resources as a world-class esports organization, don’t worry! This article aims to demystify the world of esports health and, hopefully, provide you with a flexible guide that you can tailor to your needs and use to improve your own quality of life.
Physical therapy
Exercise is important for anyone looking to keep their body in good shape, but physical health for gamers doesn’t just mean hitting the gym. There are certain muscle groups and areas that are, for gamers, more susceptible to strain and soreness. That’s why plenty of esports teams — including Team Liquid — seek out guidance from physical therapists in order to alleviate these pains and enable the athletes to do their best work.
“Gamers, like any individuals who engage in prolonged and repetitive activities, can be prone to certain musculoskeletal pathologies,” said Alex Cascone, a physical therapist who’s worked closely with Team Liquid’s League of Legends team. “These conditions often result from the repetitive strain and poor ergonomics associated with prolonged gaming sessions.”
Ultimately, humans weren’t built to sit in a chair for hours on end tapping away at a little keyboard — but that’s what most of us end up doing every day anyway, so it’s important to find ways to minimize the harm done by that.
Stretches do just that — they’re your main way to prep your muscles and minimize future aches, pains, and injuries. Some areas where gamers (or desk workers) typically feel pain are the forearm, wrist, hand, neck, and upper back. With that in mind, I sourced a number of basic stretches that Cascone recommends gamers do daily in order to get ahead of injury and strain.
Cascone also recommends some slightly more advanced stretches that are more focused on strengthening muscles in order to prevent future strain. These stretches directly address the specific demands that gamers’ bodies typically need to meet. He identified two key areas: wrist muscles and postural muscles.
“Wrist muscle strength is essential for gamers who extensively use keyboards, mice, or controllers,” said Cascone. “By strengthening the wrist muscles, gamers can withstand prolonged gaming sessions, reduce fatigue, and maintain optimal performance.”
Meanwhile, postural muscles — which include the core back, and neck muscles — can really suffer from prolonged sitting and repetitive movements. And that’s without poor posture! If you’re curled up like a shrimp in your Secret Lab chair, you’ll strain your spine and strain your muscles and joints no matter the ergonomics. Sorry to everyone who’s incorporated bad posture into their gaming setup, but the sooner you start sitting well, the better! But good or bad posture, Cacone recommends strengthening exercises.
“Strong postural muscles provide gamers with improved body control, balance, and stability, enhancing overall gaming performance and reducing the risk of developing pain or injuries,” said Cascone. He recommends you perform the below stretches at different frequencies depending on your level of experience:
- Novice: 2 times a week
- Intermediate: 2 to 4 times a week
- Advanced: Every other day
Form is vital too. If you need instruction on how to perform all of the above stretches, check out this page! If you haven’t done a stretch, start slow and pay extra attention to your form.
Nutrition
You’ve probably been told before that “you are what you eat”. What this age-old saying refers to is that the food that goes into your body plays a big role in how you feel. Eating healthier foods means you’ll feel healthier, which in turn means you’ll feel better. Simple enough, right?
Team Liquid’s chef, Heidi Miranda-Marsh, has been cooking meals for gamers for several years. She was formerly the team chef for Overwatch League team Philadelphia Fusion and now cooks for athletes and staff at the Team Liquid Alienware Training Facility in Los Angeles. Gamers often don’t fully understand the fundamental importance of healthy eating and proper nutrition, much less the impact it has on their in-game performance.
“It’s a difficult task for young players to be interested in healthy eating,” said Miranda-Marsh. “Maybe they come from a place where they’ve had inconsistent meal times. Maybe they’re eating ramen and fast food, quick grab-and-go type things, because they don’t have the time, energy, or knowledge to put into a healthy, regular diet. So trying to approach these guys and get them to eat consistently and healthily can be a difficult task. With Fusion I was kind of tricking them and putting kale in the pesto. And I still do things like that — like, tossing a whole bag of spinach into the noodles, so they have to take it.”
If you feel called out by all this, though, don’t worry; a lot of people misunderstand what healthy eating is really about. The prevailing idea that healthy food consists of flavorless salads is extremely widespread and also extremely incorrect. Plenty of healthy and vegetable-heavy food is very flavorful and delicious, all while being good for your body. Miranda-Marsh has observed the change in Team Liquid athletes over time; as they’ve started eating healthier, they’ve in turn started actively wanting to eat healthier.
“It’s really about putting it in front of people and giving them the option to make healthier choices,” she said. “You’ll start to see — and this is what happens to all people as they start to eat healthier foods — on a molecular level, you start to crave healthy foods. It takes some time, it’s not an overnight shift, but you can see a shift in their choices.”
It’s probably helped by the fact that the food Chef Heidi serves is often varied, both in flavor and nutritional benefits. Every week, Miranda-Marsh comes up with a new menu that hits all the important areas in new and fresh ways.
“I look at the week at a glance,” she said. “I try to make sure that I have a variety of proteins that are high in iron, that I have complex carbohydrates, that I have a variety of leafy greens and vegetables… I also make sure I have a good cross-cultural approach to it, too. So we might have a Korean barbecue night but we’ll also have a French filet night. Putting in Mediterranean food, Moroccan, Italian… just making sure I have a good balance of health, culture, and comfort, all in one week.”
Thorne supplements
Knowing about how to stay healthy is one thing. Actually taking action to do it another, especially if you’re new to all the practices listed so far. Supplements can help you ease into a new lifestyle, which is why Team Liquid sought out Thorne as a partner. Whether our athletes, talent, and staff feel like they need better sleep quality or if they don’t think they’re getting enough greens, Thorne supplements can help them bridge some of those gaps with less effort than it might normally take. And those gaps can matter a lot, given how much the brain can demand from the body, just by thinking and processing information.
“The biggest thing we underestimate is how metabolically active the brain is,” said Joel Totoro, director of Sports Science at Thorne. “With esports, every piece of information, every reaction — that uses nutrients, so you need to make sure you have enough both beforehand and after. What a gamer needs is different than what a linebacker needs, but both of them are asking their body to do more than the average person.”
Because they’re asking their body to do more, there are certain deficiencies and problems that gamers are more susceptible to. One notable example is vitamin D, which you get from sunlight — something that those who tend to stay indoors for long periods of time tend to get less of. Vitamin D deficiency typically leads to issues like fatigue or bad moods, which is why Team Liquid’s athletes and streamers use Thorne’s Vitamin D-1000 supplement to stave off fatigue.
Gamers often also have sleep problems or interrupted sleep cycles, owing to Gamer Hours™ usually occurring at night, which is where Thorne’s Sleep+ supplement comes in. Sleep+ contains things like melatonin, chamomile, and theanine, all of which work together to relax you and make sure you’re getting to bed at the right time. It’s the preferred supplement of Maximum, the leader of Liquid Guild, who says it’s better than any other sleep supplement he’s ever tried.
The best thing about supplements is how flexible they are — you can take them on a regular schedule, or you can just take them whenever you feel like you need them. Crucially, however, Totoro cautions that supplements can never fully replace exercise and healthy eating. They’re only meant to augment and maximize the effectiveness of other healthy practices.
“Supplements are like mortar on a brick wall,” he said. “The mortar fills in the cracks, but you can’t make a wall out of mortar.”
Even if you’re already exercising frequently and eating healthy, there are still bound to be areas of improvement, which is where Thorne comes in. Turns out you can live a healthy lifestyle and still be capable of feeling even better. If you’re curious about the mortar — er, supplements — and want to incorporate Thorne products (or general supplements) into your life, here are some of the most popular ones among Team Liquid players and talent.
If you’d like to get started with Thorne, use our affiliated link to sign up and get 20% off on all your orders! Supplements may not be a cure-all shortcut to healthy living, but they can definitely help fill in any gaps, whether you’re already employing good practices or you’re just getting started.
Your turn!
So, there you have it: three major areas that are fairly easy to address, and will make a big difference to your quality of life once you do.
As with every big change, if you’re new to physical therapy, cooking, or supplement usage, remember not to rush into things too quickly. Start out with the more fundamental things laid out in this article first before incorporating a more full-fledged routine into your life.
Speaking from personal experience, there’s nothing more aggravating than gritting your teeth, making the healthy choice, and then finding that it actually works, because it means you could’ve felt this good all along. But it’s also incredibly motivating, because it means that the power to improve this aspect of your life lies wholly in your own hands. So if you’re having a hard time working up the motivation to get started, just remember that change happens one step at a time — but the most important step is the first one.
Writer // Bonnie Qu
Graphics // Stacey Yamada
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- Source: https://www.teamliquid.com/news/2023/06/30/a-gamers-guide-to-health
