Garmin Health Metrics Supporting Nutritional and Health Advice for Esports Teams
Nutritional coaching and health monitoring have been a big part of traditional sports teams for decades. In recent years, the same level of focus and involvement has been applied to esports teams, who compete in online, multiplayer video games at a professional level.
In 2021 and again in 2022, Body Kitchen and Garmin have collaborated to track, monitor and advise different esports teams on their nutrition, performance and overall well-being to enhance their winning potential.
The Growth of Esports
From its beginnings in arcades and home video games, the esports industry has developed into a professional, profitable and entertaining industry based on competitive gaming.
With the kind of prize money and prestige on offer, it is unsurprising that players and teams are amassing the same kind of support network as traditional sports teams, including coaches, nutritionists and the accompanying activity tracking technology.
In response to the changing esports arena, companies like Garmin are honing their offering to provide dedicated products, like the Garmin Instinct – Esports Edition GPS gaming smartwatch.
League of Legends Esports Study
In the spring of 2021, a collaboration between Body Kitchen, Garmin and Euronics Gaming (ESG) began with the aim of providing nutritional advice and gaining insight into the mental and physical challenges of competitive video gaming and how to recover optimally.
The “Fit im Split” study was conducted and generated performance data via the Garmin Connect Activity API from esports athletes over 3 months via the Garmin Instinct – Esports Edition, which was automatically transferred to the Fitrockr platform and analysed by the Body Kitchen team of experts.
It was found out that improved sleep had a high impact on the player’s Body Battery™, which in turn can increase player performance on match day.
Another finding of the study was that players have an increased stress level in the “Champ Select” phase that precedes the actual game. This is because in this phase, players take turns selecting their opponents as well as the characters they want to play.
Having gained these insights by tracking in-game data from match days, coaches can now prepare players optimally before each match, leading to a more relaxed pre-match atmosphere.
Prime League Esports Study
For 2022, Body Kitchen and Garmin studied the general health of competitors in the newly founded esports organisation Eintracht Spandau, and how their in-game performance could be enhanced by analysing lifestyle data and live data on match days.
While taking part in the Prime League – League of Legends tournament, players were equipped with the Forerunner 45 to collect everyday metrics, like heart rate, sleep, stress and Body Battery™. They were also given the HRM-Dual monitoring device to collect in-game health data, looking at stats on stress levels and calories burned.
Simon Berg, Managing Director of Body Kitchen is certain that the focus on wellbeing of the individual players can push the team to higher levels: “Once an Esports organisation decides to support their athletes from a holistic perspective, nutrition, stress, and sleep become a central aspect to fundamentally and consistently drive the wellbeing and therefore increase the performance of the whole team. A shared dinner with high nutritional value is not only healthy but also socially relevant.”
With the help of Garmin data, the abstract term “wellbeing” gets a lot more specific and measurable. “By using Garmin wearables and combining the aggregated health data with our database of recipes and nutritional tips, it’s easier for organisations and players to realise the importance of their food choices on their performance and overall wellbeing and enables them to take action accordingly”.
Why Garmin?
Garmin were chosen as the technological partner for health and performance management based on their world-leading wearable technology.
Thanks to Garmin, Body Kitchen was able to record the health data of an entire League of Legends team through an entire season, to analyse it and establish the optimal nutrition coaching plan for individual players based on their lifestyle habits, in order to increase their overall well-being and, ultimately, their in-game performance.
The Future of Garmin in Esports
For Body Kitchen and Simon Berg, the hope is to find ways for everyone using Garmin wearables to build a better understanding of their everyday health and find ways to improve their well-being through conscious decision-making in their food choices.
This holistic approach can be achieved through connected health services, based on the metrics measured by Garmin devices and implemented through third-party applications. With the next League of Legends season only weeks away, Garmin and Body Kitchen are helping to elevate esports teams to deliver peak performances and compete at an ever-higher professional level.
About Fitrockr and Garmin Health
Fitrockr is a product suite of The Digital Rebels GmbH — a software company based in Berlin.
Its research and analytics platform allows organisations to easily manage and synchronise Garmin smartwatches with access to high-resolution raw data, independent hosting, real-time data streams, and direct analysis and export.
Fitrockr is one of the deepest integrated technology implementations of the Garmin Health API and SDK, providing Garmin Health corporate solutions since 2018.
For more information, visit Fitrockr at www.fitrockr.com or learn more about Garmin Health Enterprise Health Solutions at www.garmin.com/health.
