Unreasonable Schedule and Serious Health Issues: What Can We Do for esports athletes?
- Zeradow
- Jan 3, 2020
- 4 min read
Hundreds of thousands of audiences are cheering in the chat of online esports matches live stream, while inside the esports stadium, likeminded fans are screaming for skilful performances of the winning team.
Esports athletes get their trophies with excitement and glory of it all. But as they go back to the daily training, they find themselves overloaded.
“We need to tolerant more than 12 hours of daily training time,” said Ying Mo, an esports athlete who won 2016 League of Legends University Tournament in China. With his friend, they formed a team called FKS and took part in a lot of matches.
The unreasonable schedule is never a new topic for esports training. Faker, one of the most famous esports athletes of League of Legends, mentioned that he trains for 12 to 15 hours daily (Hattenstone, 2017). It is a common phenomenon that esports athletes are asked to spend a long time on training.
During the interview with Ying Mo, he also talked about how the esports club asked him to practice a certain in-game skill repeatedly and it was both tiring and boring.
“We spend hours and hours sitting in front of computers,” he said. “Every day we train until midnight and are not allowed to leave unless we achieve daily training goals.”
Overloaded training goals are not only tiring but can also be physically harmful to esports athletes. Some researchers have already discussed the health issues of esports athletes, and Geoff “iNcontrol” Robinson, a legendary StarCraft professional, was shown in the research as an example.
Robinson has deep vein thromboses in his knee for sitting and training for a long time daily. And people discussed that the thromboses can be life-threatening once they travel to his lungs.
Just on July 21 this year, Robinson passed away.
Robinson’s family revealed in a tweet that he “passed quickly and painlessly from a blood clot in his lungs.” Between playing and streaming as an esports athlete, Robinson was such an inspiration for gaming community of StarCraft. This is a huge loss for all his friends and families, but also a warning sign for ignored health issues of esports athletes.
Huang “Leave” Xin, who is also a world-class esports athlete, announced in October this year that he had to quit the Overwatch World Cup and couldn’t play for Team China because of health problems.
In his personal Weibo, he said he is “so guilty and sorry for disappointing everyone”. Since he paid little attention to health management, his physical condition was getting worse. He couldn’t be focused for a long time because of lack of sleep and endocrine disorders, which can be devastated for esports athletes.
Health condition of Huang “Leave” Xin has always been a widely discussed topic in Overwatch community. In 2016, he was in an esports club called Miraculous Youngster. As a 15-year-old gamer, Leave was noticed by more clubs because of his remarkable in-game performance. He then joined a world-class Overwatch esports team, Chengdu Hunters.
Entering the esports industry at such a young age and ignoring health management for a long time, Leave’s physical condition started to go wrong. And it was shown both in his physical appearance and performance.
During the intense training of esports clubs, both Leave and his coaches paid little attention to his health issues. He constantly stayed up late, ate high-calorie fast foods, had little exercise, and sat behind the keyboard for hours and hours.
“Most meals inside esports clubs are take-out foods,” Ying Mo said. “We usually finish our meal within 15 to 20 minutes. We really don’t have time to spend one hour making healthy meals.”
In addition, he said that fast foods are more satisfying for them because they usually train until midnight. If they eat oily and high-calorie foods, they won’t easily get hungry and tired.
The strict career demands and unreasonable schedule can easily cause serious health problems of esports athletes. Not to mention that most esports athletes and esports clubs are ignoring the existence of these issues.
More esports professionals need to pay attention to this issue.
Some people have already noticed this problem and tried to change the situation. A former Overwatch esports coach, Rario, told Gamers Radar that he found this problem when he was working for esports club.
“Although esports is an official sports activity in many countries, comparing to traditional sports, the training methods are still immature,” Rario said. “While sports teams have trainers, therapist, doctor, and etc., most esports teams only have two coaches to guide them.”
“I find a very interesting phenomenon,” Rario added. “Every esports athletes and coaches I asked acknowledge the importance of physical health. They all believe it is extremely vital, but no one does anything for it!”
It seems that esports professionals understand all the issues, but seldom take actions.
Rario also told Gamers Radar that he found some esports clubs are trying to have a better schedule and include physical exercise. “The situation is getting better,” Rario said.
“As far as I know, Rfrsh Entertainment is doing a great job,” he added. It was reported that Rfrsh Entertainment is paying attention to physical training and health issues of esports athletes. The company asks its esports athletes to have yoga classes and other outdoor exercises.
Rario believes that taking times to exercise shouldn’t be considered time-consuming and inefficient. On the country, it should be a way for esports athletes to adjust status and keep healthy.
“The best thing we can do now is to have a more reasonable schedule and ask esports athletes to have more physical training,” Rario said. “More esports clubs need to take actions instead of doing nothing.”
References:
Hattenstone, S. (2017). The rise of eSports: are addiction and corruption the price of its success? Sport 2.0. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jun/16/top-addiction-young-people-gaming-esports
Rario. (2019, November 15th). Personal Interview.
Ying, M. (2019, November 11th). Personal Interview.
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