Originally Posted by
SnnY
You might not exercise every muscle in your body, but have you sat through an eight hour session of Super mario brothers or something?
Not only does it take a lot of stamina to be able to retain your precision after having played the game through a couple of times, but it's also a strain on the muscles in your hands.
I've never played a game constantly for more than an hour - unless you count football managing games. Which are probably a bit different. I do agree that it would be taxing physically but then thumb wrestling would be too.
And there are quite a few sports you could define as being athletic that only rely on select musclegroups in your body, and a high level of specialization.
I knew an "athlete" once that weighed easily three times as much as me, yet she competed at an advanced level with ball tossing or whatever it was. And I've seen ppl who chuck them spears, who have a right arm 1.5 times bulkier than the left.
Granted some games that are accepted as sports can also be put in the same catagory as gaming, like darts or crown green bowling - shot putting and javelin aren't because they are explosive sports which require maximum muscle effort coupled with technique. While the actual throwing is only done with one arm, the rest of the body is used too.
I'm not saying it is an athletic sport, as much as I'm asking how you can say that any sport is athletic.
It's about conditioning. A gamer can be a 7 stone weakling or a 35 stone couch potato. An athletic sportsman has had to condition his/her whole body to be able to perform even completently. In actual fact javelin throwers and shotputters aren't that uneven, or at least they shouldn't be because their weaker arm is vital for balance, momentum and exertion.
It's all about competing and using your body to accomplish something. If you think, like busy seems to do, that athletic sports are somehow better then I want to know why.
I think athletic sports are better in so much as they're healthier, both from a social point of view and because I think running around in the open air a few times a week is good for you.
I was going to be diplomatic and say that I didn't consider one better than the other but that's just not true. In a few years I'd be much prouder if my son was playing centre forward for the school rather than if he was the best Counter Striker in form four :confused:
At any rate I'd rather participate in a sport that relies as much on your mind as it does on your body, and I think that's what videogaming does.
So does athletic sport. Especially team games such as Soccer and Rugby, for example. The best soccer players when at their peak are only set apart by their minds. At the top level, apart from the obvious pace exception, physical conditioning is very much a level playing field so technique and mental quickness is far more important. You can take 34 y/o Alan Shearer as an example of how important the mental aspect is, he is still one of the top 5 strikers in the Premiership (/me spits) yet the defenders he is up against are faster, fitter and stronger than him yet he still manages to score in almost every match - football is a very cerebral game.
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