What do performance coaches do in esports? For starters, let’s remember esports has gone way beyond sitting in front of a gaming PC playing competitive games for hours to top a leaderboard. It has now become a journey, a transformative one, where community and personal development are prioritized.
A certain level of professionalism is now demanded in esports. Any player who wants to go far has to do more than just know how to play games. While being skillful remains core, gamers are still humans and are not immune to social and mental challenges. This aspect has been overlooked for a while, but not anymore.
Several organizations are now hiring a set of professionals called Performance coaches (PCs) to help players in many ways beyond gaming. We give you the lowdown on who they are and their existential roles in esports below.
Performance Coaches in Esports
Performance coaches in esports are people who monitor gamers’ health and wellness to help them perform better. Esports organizations employ them to manage, inspire, and motivate players to ensure they remain competent enough every season. And no one must be left behind because the failure or fall of one player can ruin the team’s season.
However, performance coaches vary in their areas of expertise, so a team often hires someone who can help meet the needs of their players. Becoming a performance coach doesn’t require a specific level of education, and there isn’t an exclusive path to it.
Nevertheless, the work required requires a background in exercise physiology, psychology, nutrition, sports science, or some other relevant area. Realistically, it’s impossible to master everything. PCs only try to cover as much ground as they can.
What Do Performance Coaches Do in Esports?
Performance coaches have various roles in an esports team or organization. According to Misfits Gaming’s performance coach, Ismael Pedraza, there are two ways PCs are evaluated to determine whether they are effective. The first is through client satisfaction, and the second is by looking at the goals achieved through the established processes and programs.
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They Relate With Players on a Personal Level
Since 2022, when esports became recognized as a sport, and gamers were referred to as athletes, the demand for high-level performance has been high. This definitely has side effects, such as increased burnout and fatigue. Professional coaches in esports have to solve all of these human-related problems. And to do this, they have to get to know each player.
Reinforcement of Values
Gamers tend to live sedentary lives, which is bad for their health. While they may not immediately recognize its effects, they become noticeable in the long run. Performance coaches, therefore, help players improve by reinforcing certain habits that are often overlooked. These include proper sleep, meditation, breathing exercises, physical exercises, and diet.
Monitoring of Emotions and Mental State
Performance coaches monitor gamers’ emotions and mental state to ensure they perform at the expected level. PCs note how their team communicates, individually and collectively, how they react when losing or winning, their goal-setting pattern, and many others.
By combining all this, they can access the team and each player. PCs then devise means to ensure the gamers are mentally fit and emotionally stable. These include mental warm-ups, playing chess, etc. These things are important because health and well-being go beyond being physically fit.
Creating the Perfect Training Practices
Beyond having fun, esports are now a means of earning a living. Therefore, for an organization to make enough profits to pay its gamers well, the players must also be good enough to win competitions. Personal coaches are sometimes responsible for creating training plans for players that will help improve their cognitive skills, hand-eye coordination, endurance level, reaction time, etc.
Participating in the Recovery Process of Players
Did you know that E-spot players also get injured? Yes, soccer players get leg injuries because they play with them. E-posters also have hand injuries such as wrist sprains, numbness, finger pains, etc. In many cases, performance coaches must monitor injured players’ recovery process. Also, a player might not be injured yet performing poorly. PCs must find out why and the ways to get the player’s head back into the game. This is one of the places where their psychological training shines.
Sign Off
What do performance coaches do in esports? They use their knowledge and experience to help gamers perform better in their careers. This role in esports is fast rising. However, it is quite tasking. In and out of seasons, they have to ensure players’ well-being.
There are suggestions that esports organizations should hire more than one performance coach for their team because of the diversity of the expertise areas. Likewise, casinos can hire some of these specialists to help professional poker players during tournaments.
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