THIS IS HOW YOU COMPLETELY FIX your for Hand & Wrist Pain in Fortnite

20 May THIS IS HOW YOU COMPLETELY FIX your for Hand & Wrist Pain in Fortnite

Posted at 18:16h in Healthy Environment by Matthew Hwu 0 Comments

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Helloooooo guys. I’m Matt. I’m a Doctor of Physical Therapy and I work with pro esports teams. Also… i’m the goat apparently for gamers pain therapy. Yeah – thank Psalm and friends.

So earlier this year I sent out a questionnaire (if you haven’t filled it out – here it is) to the fortnite community to learn more about problems and issues you guys encounter with your health. This is the article going over the results but also some nice solutions for you guys to help better manage your pain. We’ll talk about the questions, the results and three major pain patterns you guys are dealing with along with what I’ve seen with my work with some pros. In each section there will be a link to stretches & exercises you can do to help fix your pain.

Fortnite Health & Injury Questionnaire

Okay so the FIRST two questions asked about what your guys’s BIGGEST challenge was to maintain health as a gamer and what you guys are currently doing to help with it. Here are some responses. But as a summary…

As we would expect the majority of responses were related to pain at the wrist & hand. Another major concern noted from a majority of responses were how to maintain proper posture. What was great to see was that there were a few individuals out there who understood proper scheduling, exercise and self-education with gaming health were important to address these issues.

Despite these responses, it seemed as though there were still important questions which needed to be answered

What exercises should I be doing?
What about posture do I need to know to maintain better physical health?
Are gaming breaks the answer? Should I not be playing as much kovaaks/creative?

This article adventure will help answer these questions but lets go over some additional details from the questionnaire.

Demographic & Behavior Data about the Fortnite Community

Male or Female: 98% of individuals who responded were male
Age Data:
1. 54% were under 18
2. 40% were between 18-24 and only 5% were over 24
Hours Played & Methods of Learning:
1. I expected the majority of responses to be those who were in the competitive community which was absolutely reflected in hours played per week.
  1. 45.90% of individuals played over 30 hours a week (similar % to the <18 age group)
  2. Roughly 45% of individuals played between 10-30 hours a week which was also consistent to the 18-24 age group.
2. This is expected in terms of distribution as those who are younger have more time to dedicate to playing the game while those who are a bit older may only have time after work or other important life obligations.
3. Most individuals in the competitive fortnite community seemed to learn the best in visual and kinesthetic format although this could be mainly due to the education content being primarily video-based.

Injury & Pain Data about the Fortnite Community

Alright now for the most important part of the questionnaire – PAIN & PAIN REGIONS. There were two major questions we asked. Full body & forearm/hand specific pain regions. Here is what we found

General Pain Question: If you’ve ever experienced pain or discomfort while playing, where did you feel it? The three major areas of pain seem to be the following

Wrist, Forearm & Hand (45%)
Neck/Shoulder (35%)
Lower Back (20%)

This is definitely expected as we are utilizing our wrist, forearm and hand the most when we game. Our shoulder and upper spine (neck/mid-back) provide key stability for our hands to move and control the mouse. If we have poor posture, ergonomics and general weakness of our upper body this can definitely lead to the likely postural strain reported. If you are in the #2 / #3 categories, please check out our posture, low back and shoulder content

And NOW FOR THE FOREARM WRIST AND HAND PAIN PATTERNS. We inquired about where you guys felt pain the most and found there are three key pain patterns. This is also consistent with our treatment experience over the past few years in the FPS esports. These be represented in the following sections with specific exercises you can incorporate into your day to help prevent or address the pain.

So if you have pain at your wrist & hand as a fortnite or general FPS player – this is for you. The following three regions were found to be the most common and were consistent with the all of the players I have worked with in Fortnite and across other FPS communities.

Do you have pain in regions 1, 2 or 3?