THINK eSports is just a game? Think again. Some of Australia’s best eSports athletes have enlisted the help of the NSW Institute of Sport and cross-code sports star Jarryd Hayne to get the ultimate edge.

Hayne was on hand to try out the NSWIS-developed ‘Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Academy’, a training program specifically designed to improve the skills of Australian eSports stars.

This includes activities such as performance stressor tests where athletes do a 10km cycling time trial and then complete cognitive tests and repeat to demonstrate the effect of stress and fatigue on the body, and identify how to fight through it.

HARD COUNT PODCAST! Laurie Horesh, Melanie Dinjaski and Patrick Stack bring you the NFL Mid-Season Extravaganza. featuring a chat with former San Francisco 49er Jarryd Hayne.

Hayne joins eSports athletes in trying out the ‘Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Academy’ training program. Source: Supplied

There’s also team building, nutrition, leadership and decision making activities, as well as a performance stress skills test in the pool where athletes hold their breath under water and learn to calm their mind, allowing them to recognise the subtle changes that take place in their thoughts, behaviours and physiology when stress increases.

“It’s about being relaxed under pressure, under stress, and performing when it matters most,” Hayne said of the program after road-testing it himself with Australia’s Mindfreak eSports team.

“It’s been great, always good to learn off the pros, get their tips and it is good insight as well. I always love learning about different areas of professionals and what they do.

“A bunch of the guys in the NRL love it, we’ve got some keen gamers who spend multiple hours playing [video games] in the off-season.”

But don’t get too excited about the possibility of the ‘Hayne Plane’ making a foray into professional eSports.

“Nah no way, I haven’t got that much time on my hands,” Hayne said, despite being an avid gamer and accomplished cross-code athlete.

“I’ve seen a couple of competitions. The fanfare, it’s pretty surreal seeing the stadiums full and the guys going at it. It creates a great atmosphere and it’d be pretty difficult there with all those people watching while you’re game-playing.”

Hayne is joined by Mitch Mader of Mindfreak and NSWIS’ Dr Mike Martin. Source: Supplied

Mindfreak captain Mitch Mader was impressed by the program and said it’s a great step in helping his team and other Australian eSports athletes take their gameplay to the next level.

“You want to be in an optimal zone and it makes perfect sense to us, because we play in big events sometimes for $1 million, and you get nervous,” he said.

Mader also believes the NSWIS program shows just how far eSports has come and proves wrong all the negative stereotypes about the physical and mental strength of gamers.

“Everyone thinks of us as an overweight person who sits there and plays video games from nine in the morning until the late hours, that they sit there and eat Doritos and drink energy drinks,” Mader said.

That’s certainly not the case for Mader. He sticks to a strict diet and exercise regimen to keep his body and mind in peak condition for the rigours of competitive gaming. And there are rigours.

Mental exhaustion, dehydration, and repetitive strain injuries are all risks eSports athletes must combat.

This makes extra care in fitness, nutrition, and training even more important, not just for performance but for the health of athletes too.

Hayne was put through mental and physical challenges in the program. Source: Supplied

“Mentally it is very challenging,” Mader said.

“In our last event we started at 9 o’clock in the morning and finished at 9 o’clock in the evening. Not non-stop, but there were about five or six series in a 12-hour period and a series goes for 45 minutes to one hour.

“Every game is massive, this is what you’ve worked for the whole year and if you lose you’re out, so there’s a lot of emotions, screaming, yelling, communicating, talking, getting hyped up. You’re always burning a lot of energy and because you’re nervous, you forget to eat too.”

A recent report from NewZoo put the global eSports audience at 148 million, valuing the industry at $493 million, and SuperData believe the sport could be worth as much as $1.9 billion by 2018. This incredibly rapid rise has catapulted eSports into talk for inclusion into the biggest sports competition of all — the Olympics.

Hayne undertakes training in the NSWIS pool. Source: Supplied

Head of Psychology at NSWIS, Dr Mike Martin, assisted in the development of the ‘Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Academy’. He said eSports is not as different to traditional sports as many might think, and could well be an Olympic sport sooner rather than later.

“The concepts of communication, team work, strategy and concentration, apply equally as it does in any elite sport,” Martin said.

“ESports is looking towards an Olympic position and if you look at the sports that have come into the Olympics for Tokyo like surfing, skateboarding, and sport-climbing…the logical next step after that, is eSports.”

Jarryd Hayne was speaking upon the release of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on November 4