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April 4th, 2025 15:36
On the Necessity for Biomechanics Research in Esports
Article link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14763141.2024.2354440
What’s it about? This article discusses the importance of biomechanics research in esports, highlighting how biomechanical principles can enhance player performance, prevent injuries, and improve training methods. Oftentimes, I see articles discussing the mental and emotional aspects of esports, so it was interesting to read about some of the physical considerations, specifically potential opportunities for future research.
What is biomechanics research? Biomechanics research is the field of study that seeks to understand how living things move. By gathering objective measurements (using 3-D motion capture, measuring muscle activity, etc.), scientists can use this data to help understand the mobility and stability demonstrated by esports players while competing and practicing. This data can then be used to optimize player performance, as is already done in traditional sports.
Why is this important? With sports biomechanics being such a large area of research for high-performance athletes, it was interesting to see how neglected biomechanics research is for esports and some potential benefits that it could provide. The physical aspects of esports appear to be a neglected subject, with a large portion of esports performance research focused on outcome measurements (e.g. match outcomes and in-game statistics) or cognitive/mental training. While these are important factors, there is demonstrated research that shows that overall performance outcomes can also be improved with a better understanding of the individual motor performance.
Additionally, because of the lower physical exertion associated with esports, current training regimens consist of extended periods of sustained play. For professional esports players, the average practice time ranges from 5.5 to 12 hours per day. Without appropriate training guidelines, players tend to adopt inadequate training habits, which may be linked to early retirement. Repetitive strain injuries are common in esports, and a better understanding of the underlying biomechanics utilized in esports could help develop better training guidelines and protocols.
One question it left me with is as the esports industry continues to grow, should professional esports players be required to follow standardized injury prevention and training protocols, similar to traditional athletes? Let me know your thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
Aleeya
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April 24th, 2025 18:48
Very interesting read! To follow up with your question, I think players should be required to follow injury prevention that is tailored to them. This can include lower body exercises to prevent inactivity of those muscles, back and core exercises to help with posture and providing long enough resting time for the hands and arms. I also think another way to tackle this is how different consoles are evolving. Many contemporary consoles are handheld, but future developments may include either the console itself or extensions of consoles to include lower body attachments, depending on the type of game. For example, Logitech's G923 wheel, which includes a steering wheel and foot pedals can be used as a peripheral for racing-based games. It can also come from the video game itself. For example, Just Dance, Wii Sports and other games are designed for you to do the movements yourself, which encourages healthy activity. The questions that now come up are how we can integrate peripheral devices to consoles at a low-cost and accessible price and how designing with equity, diversity and inclusion should be discussed when adding more components that require more parts of the body within a video game.