When I was young, I used to practice gymnastics. A lot of my teammates used to train with either wrist or ankle straps on. I was one of the latter uses. I had weak ankles and would bruise them fast. Luckily for me the balance beam, bridge and floor parts weren’t an issue as that’s more acrobatics and balance than speed and strenght. The jump however was my big enemy and I would often bruise my ankle by either sprinting up to the trampoline or board or landing wrong after my jump. So whenever I had to practice that particular part or perform during a gymnastics match I would make sure my ankles were taped in properly so stuff like that wouldn’t happen.
Fast forward about 15 years and I’m at risk for injury once again, only this time it’s my wrist and it’s caused by excessive usage of the mouse. Especially now that I have landed a job in datamanagement/IT I notice that I can’t really game as intensively as I used to and that I need to pay attention to the signs my body gives me way earlier than I’m used to.
I got confronted with this very hard after a four hour playsession on Diablo 3 last night. Now ofcourse Diablo is a very mouse intensive game so getting your wrist hurt is easier there, but honestly it really quite scared me. The fact that my wrist still seems to hurt today only emphasizes that taking regular breaks in gaming is very much necessary. Not only because it’s better for my wrist, it’s also much better for one’s health in general to not sit down for hours at a time.
Even at work I get up every two hours so I think I really want to enforce that policy during home play aswell.
It’s not just the wrist. I notice my back and bottom start hurting after a while aswell. Sitting is literally causing harm and I don’t want that. So even though I want to do all these things in all these games, I also need to take things in moderation. Especially when I notice it’s taking it’s toll on my body. And right now on some days it really is.
I guess getting older really is starting to show. I remember playing for hours straight on World of Warcraft when i was 20 years old. I just can’t do that anymore. And in a way, that’s a good thing.