Muscle pain is hitting esports players in Brazil
Hours of practice back to back, fingers glued to the mouse and the controller, posture locked in front of the screen. Competitive gaming is growing fast in the country, and alongside it comes a problem the industry still treats with little attention: musculoskeletal injuries among esports athletes. A survey aimed at Brazilian players sets out to map exactly where that pain shows up and why it happens.
A sport that looks more and more like the traditional ones
Calling video game competitions a sport no longer sounds strange. There are professional leagues, a championship calendar, a loyal audience and athletes who make a living from it. The NCAA itself, the body that runs college sport in the United States, has spent years debating whether to formally recognise the discipline within its structure. The argument is not academic hair-splitting: formal recognition means scholarships, medical infrastructure and, above all, care for the athlete’s health.
And that is exactly where the problem sits. Games such as FIFA, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Fortnite, StarCraft and League of Legends demand very different things from the body. A first-person shooter does not impose the same repetitive load as a MOBA with long matches. Either way, the player’s body picks up the bill.
Inactivity, repetition and the body as a supporting act
The routine of anyone competing at a high level tends to involve long sessions seated, little movement and intense, repetitive use of the hands. Add the sedentary habits typical of the scene, and the ground is fertile for chronic pain. Repetitive strain injuries, common in office environments, have a direct parallel in these athletes’ daily lives.
The catch is that the science is still in its infancy here. There is a shortage of long-term studies capable of showing how this wear and tear develops across a competitive career. The Brazilian research tries to fill part of that gap, looking not only at how often injuries occur but also at which parts of the body are worst affected.
Age, hours played and weekly frequency enter the equation
The study’s central hypothesis is straightforward: the parts of the body most heavily used in play should account for the largest number of complaints. That makes sense, but confirming it with data changes the picture for anyone thinking about prevention. The researchers also expect variables such as the player’s age, total time spent playing, weekly frequency and daily session length to help predict who is most at risk of getting hurt.
Ergonomic, biological and even psychosocial factors are part of the calculation, in a direct parallel with what is already studied in workplaces and in other sports. With the player base growing year after year in Brazil, identifying these risks stops being academic curiosity and becomes a public health question for a group that keeps gaining ground.
