As esports grows exponentially, we’re learning more and more about the athletes. Primarily, we’ve learned that in terms of preparation, they aren’t that much different than baseball, basketball or hockey players. And now, BARWIS Methods and KidKesty Productions have partnered to help esports athletes in ways never before seen.
The human performance training organization, BARWIS, combined with event-planning and hospitality specialist, KidKesty, are helping esports players maximize their talents. The partnership kicked off at the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) World Championship earlier this month.
“We were there for player and event support,” explained Alex Bubnov, the National Director of BARWIS Esports. “So you know, that could be in a variety of senses. We had a physical therapist on staff, I had (our) National Director of Tech and my Director of Partnerships.”
A common misconception is that these athletes don’t require the same type of physical support that other athletes do. Many still fall behind in this category, but BARWIS is beginning to step in and fill the void.
14 hours till the first matchup of the @RocketLeague at @MGMNatlHarbor ! Action kicks off at 1pm EST #barwisesports #esports #rlcswc2017 pic.twitter.com/A8JaLpsG2Q
— Mike Barwis (@BarwisMethods) November 10, 2017
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As a KidKesty-coordinated event, each player at RLCS had access to elite level training technology, nutritional methods and recovery methods. “Players are essentially seen as capped somewhere around 25 (years old),” Bubnov said. “That’s kind of where I saw, ‘There’s no way, why should that be a reality when you have hockey players that are over 40 having the best seasons of their careers?'”
BARWIS currently works alongside Halo Neuroscience to provide an extra layer of support to athletes. Professional teams, including the San Francisco Giants, have worked with the Halo Sport to get the most out of workouts. According to Halo Neuroscience, the product utilizes Neuropriming technology to accelerate the neurologic gains of strength and skill learning that result from athletic training. Now it’s being used in esports.
“It just really made a lot of sense to utilize them as a tool in this space,” Bubnov said. “These are cognitive athletes, these are players that are highly neurologically focused and are working on extreme calibration on the finest motor areas that they have, their digits in their hands.”
Many in the esports realm are only now beginning to take a serious approach to nutrition, sleep schedules and other physiological factors that effect athletic performance. This is leading to an increased need for support at major events such as the RLCS.
“For over twenty years we have evolved the world of sport science to elevate the health, performance, and recovery of elite athletes at both the cognitive and neuromuscular levels,” BARWIS founder and CEO Mike Barwis said in a statement. “We could not be more excited to implement our intricately designed protocols to enhance the performance and recovery of esports professionals.”
