The top two players in the world, Fnatic’s “Olofmeister” and “GuardiaN”
of Na’Vi have recently reported injuries to their arms and wrists. While
GuardiaN’s wasn’t CS:GO related and he obtained it during football, it
was more than enough to throw him off his game and cause him to play at a
sensitivity 4x greater than his normal sensitivity all in the hopes of
having to use his injured wrist less.
Pro players play for hours
on end and it’s very easy to see how someone might obtain Repetitive
Strain Injury (RSI) or tendinitis as they often times complete awkward
tasks with the flick of their wrists. Whether it be their aim style or
grip on the mouse we do not know, but what we do know is that this is a
huge threat to professional players everywhere. In a game that requires
so much precision, even a tiny bit of pain can throw off a shot or
spray.
Besides the aiming and skilled part of CS:GO, it can also
destroy a player’s confidence. In a tweet sent out by GuardiaN soon
after their MLG Columbus defeat he mentioned that he had a confidence
level of zero. Being hesitant to take a shot or being self conscious
about your injury can really handicap a person’s play. I also had the
chance to talk to Team Liquids coach James O’Conor a bit on the matter
and he mentioned that he also believes that an injury like this can
really mess with a player’s habits and mental state.
In the
future it will be interesting to see if these large organizations start
providing health care. While gaming isn’t the most dangerous of sports,
there are many health problems that can cause someone to not perform at
their highest state. If an organization is going to pay these large
salaries they’ll want to take care of their players health as well.
There
is also thoughts of possibly creating a short off season for CS:GO.
Currently there is none and there are large tournaments and leagues
weekly. This doesn’t give players much time to rest up or enjoy things
outside of videogames. Professional sports have large breaks where while
the player and team might be practicing, but it is at a much more laid
back level in order to keep everyone safe for the start of the season.
Maybe this is just what Counter-Strike calls for in order to keep
players safe, but I’ll go into an offseason in a later article.
You
shouldn’t worry about any injuries in CS:GO as most people don’t play
enough to injure themselves, but if you are there are plenty of online
articles by health professionals that can teach you how to warm up your
wrists. My advice would be to find a warm up you like, take breaks, and
keep good posture. While we all love to grind CS:GO, a 10-15 minute
break to let your wrist relax might pay off in the long run if you’re a
hard core CS player.
