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Hands up if you’re grinding hard in Season 4 of Fortnite?!

Yes, you had to endure the legendary Fortnite-free blackhole event, a mysterious lack of meaningful updates during Season 1 of Chapter 2, the month-long delay of Fortnite Season 3, and Fortnite fashion shows, but if you’re reading this you’re probably still working hard to get better at Fortnite.

However, if you’re one of the 350 million registered players currently enjoying this brilliantly addictive online shoot-em-up, you might find yourself in a bit of a paradox. To get better at the game, you need to play a lot. But the more you play, the more it might come at a cost – and this goes to a whole new level if you’re striving for the next Fortnite World Cup.

I’m not talking about the V-bucks needed to purchase the Season 3 Battle Pass or the never-ending stream of creative Fortnite skins and accessories.

I’m talking about your physical and mental health.

Let’s face it, Fortnite is as unique as it is entertaining. Yet you’re still prone to the stereotypical consequences of online gaming. The long sedentary hours on the grind, constant exposure to highly stressful situations, sleep deprivation, etc. There’s the potential for stiff necks, sore backs, headaches, repetitive strain injuries, and uncontrolled stress as far as a heavy sniper can see.

Further to this, a recent study has shown that eSports competitors have a higher fat percentage, less lean muscle mass, and lower bone mineral density than non eSports competitors.

So it’s important to understand these qualities can “return fire” and limit the boundaries of your physical and mental performance in-game.

Yes, you may already dominate most 1v1’s but how good should you actually be?

Consider the best round or moment you’ve ever had playing Fortnite Battle Royale. Why aren’t you that good all the time? Why aren’t you better than that?

Consider the best round or moment you’ve ever had playing Fortnite Battle Royale. Why aren’t you that good all the time? Click To Tweet

Where are the unnecessary handbrakes to consistent peak Fortnite gameplay?

It’s Not Just the Fortnite Professionals Who Play a Lot

Professional gaming is big business these days. The pros can earn millions of dollars a year from prize money and endorsements, but they have to put in the hours.

The first-ever Fortnite World Cup Champion – 16-year-old Kyle ‘Bugha’ Giersdorf, took home a cool $3,000,000 for his dominance on the day. All he had to do was outperform 40,000,000 competitors online. Simple, right?

One of the world’s most recognizable Fortnite players – Ninja, or Tyler Blevins to his mum, streams his gameplay online for others to watch a “minimum” of 12 hours a day.

But he’s not alone. As consumers, a report entitled “The State Of Online Gaming” noted that those who play recreationally average more than 7 hours of gameplay a week. Interestingly, a survey of Fortnite gameplay found 50% of its participants played between 6-15 hours a week.

Ultimately, we just love to play Fortnite.

So whether Fortnite pays your bills, you’re competing to qualify for the next Fortnite World Cup, or you just love to box-trap kill your mates on the weekend, it’s important to understand the mental and physical consequences attached. Consequences that may in-turn affect your Fortnite gameplay.

So let’s talk about how to conquer these mental and physical handbrakes and gain a competitive advantage on the rest of the lobby.

How to Get Better at Fortnite Battle Royale – Beyond Playing

Now, this may sound strange, but if you’re a Fortnite professional, Twitch streamer, YouTube content creator, hardcore amateur, recreational player, or just looking for something to do when you’re bored – consider yourself an athlete. Or at least begin to think like one.

If you’re a Fortnite professional, Twitch streamer, YouTube content creator, hardcore amateur or recreational player - consider yourself an athlete. Click To Tweet

Perhaps not in the traditional sense of running fast or lifting heavy, but you’re still leveraging the function of your body to achieve your goals. Talk to any competitive athlete and you’ll appreciate the need to do more than monotonously practice your skills. There’s a need to prioritize the overall health, wellness, and function of your body so that you can best express yourself when needed.

If you saw the Fortnite World Cup you’ll have seen some elite gameplay. Quick edits, offensive and defensive builds, precision tracking and shooting, split-second decision-making and on the fly strategy all highlight some truly elite mental and physical output.

With this in mind, the following are competitive tips to not only help you better withstand the physical and mental rigors of Fortnite Battle Royale, but help you explore the upper echelon of your athletic gaming potential.

Let’s try to expose and eliminate some of those hidden handbrakes and get better at Fortnite.

Make Your Fortnite Setup Ergonomically Sound

This won’t be groundbreaking but it needs constant reinforcement.

Whether you play Fortnite on Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch, PC, or mobile (R.I.P), you must make sure you’re in the best position possible. Otherwise, you’ll unnecessarily be at risk of a whole bunch of musculoskeletal stiffness, aches, and pains.

From a performance perspective, everything functions better in a good position. There’s a reason the best runners move the same, and the best lifters lift the same. You can still dominate the competition from a bad shape if you’re talented enough, but you’ll never be the best version of yourself at the same time. Poor postures and shapes ultimately put a hidden “cap” on your peak performance.

You can still dominate the competition from a bad posture if you’re talented enough, but you’ll never be the best version of yourself at the same time. Click To Tweet

How To Find Your Best Position

Learning to sit correctly stems from correct standing

Once you’ve adopted good posture support yourself with pillows, rolled up towels or cushions to make it easier. Don’t be discouraged if it feels weird, persist until your body loosens and re-strengthens.

If you’re at your PC, everything needs to fit around this exact shape. Your screen should be at eye level and your elbows should be at your side and resting on the desk. Your mouse and keyboard should not drag your elbows away from your side. Have the chair as high or as low as you feel best supports this boring shape.

If on console be aware of how easy it can be to sit hunched forward and rest your elbows on your knees. Do what you can to establish a more upright, shoulders back shape. Consider rolling up another towel and placing it in your lower back for support.

The point here is that you need to consider moving heaven and earth to protect good shapes. Your body will function better in-game and it’ll also best protect you from a host of unnecessary aches and pains down the track. Better yet…

Stand Up to Play Fortnite

There’s a lot of information coming out about the benefits of standing over sitting. The reality is that standing trumps sitting in almost every conceivable way when talking optimal body function and overall wellness.

From a Physiotherapy standpoint (pun absolutely intended), sitting for long periods is a great way to accrue stiffness through lack of movement. The neck, upper back, shoulders, lower back, and hips are all at constant risk of stiffening.

Sitting increases your risk of heart disease, makes you more likely to adopt poor breathing patterns and be more stressed. So if you need to do something for a long period of time – try standing up.

The physical benefits of standing may not get you your next Fortnite Victory Royale, but the mental benefits might.

Clinically, standing has been shown to improve your ability to think and pay attention, make decisions, handle stress, battle mental fatigue, improve your mood, increase productivity and concentration among many others.

In short, your ability to think clearly and process information may improve as well as your ability to handle stress and mental fatigue.

Now does any of that sound useful for an online battle of life or death?

This works a treat for those on Xbox or Playstation as you have more natural freedom to move than PC, but a standing desk or tabletop converter may just be the ticket to improving your Fortnite gameplay.

Practice Deep Breathing

Despite breathing for your entire life, how much thought have you actually put into it? It sounds insane but deep breathing is perhaps the single fastest and best way to enhance performance and overall health.

Constant sitting directs us to take more shallow, upper-chests breaths instead of the deeper diaphragmatic ones. The body associates upper chest breathing with highly stressed or fatigued states.

These effects compound when subjected to high-stress gaming. Cizzorz death run anyone?

Thanks to the work of gurus like Wim Hof and Brian Mackenzie, the medical industry is now beginning to understand just how powerful simple deep breath-work can be in controlling your physiology.

Clinically it can be used to great effect for things like managing regular and chronic pain, anger and helping the healing and recovery processes. More interestingly, this can be particularly useful for Fortnite gameplay.

We can use it to better tolerate and regulate stress, handle nervousness, improve focus and decision-making and improve sleep – things vital for consistent high-level Fortnite gameplay.

If you get that sudden rush of blood in a build-battle, you can breathe your way back to a more focused state. If you’re victorious, you can be instantly prepared for the next one.

If you get a sudden rush of blood in a build-battle, you can breathe your way back to a more focused state. Click To Tweet

Not only is it brilliant for real-time Fortnite gameplay, but it can also work pre-round to better prepare you for that inevitable adrenaline spike in-game. It’s far better to go from a 2/10 to a 6/10 and maintain a more level head than to go from a six to 12 and panic or choke.

Box Breathing:

This pattern cues your body into regressing from the shallow, faster breathing associated with a heightened nervous system to a more mellow, relaxed, state. Tinker with the numbers but after a few cycles, you should start to feel your body legitimately shift down a gear or two.

Box breathing can be a great way to quickly get your heightened nervous system under control

The Wim Hof Breathing Method:

The idea is to deep breathe a bunch to supercharge your body with oxygen and then fully exhale and hold it for as long as you can. It’s brilliant because once you’re brimming with oxygen you just focus on relaxing during the exhale hold. In no time you’ll feel at ease and out of that heightened physiological state. It won’t disappoint.

The Wim Hof breathing method can help give you conscious control over bodily functions

Related: Here are over a dozen everyday uses for the Wim Hof Method.

“Enjoy” A Cold Shower

Be like season 7’s Ice King or the Cattus from Fortnite season 9, and become friends with the cold.

Cold exposure works best when combined with deep breathing, and also flows into better sleeping and stress-regulation. Furthermore, it can strengthen your immune system which could be under threat if gaming compromises your diet, sleep, and stress levels.

Thankfully, you don’t have to throw yourself straight into an icy shower in the middle of winter. The best way to acclimatize to them is as follows:

If taking the plunge, ease into it and don’t forget to breathe!

It may sound weird, but consider having one post-Fortnite before getting in bed. It’ll definitely re-invigorate you. Much like an athlete’s ice bath, cold showers are an effective way to “reset” your nervous system and prepare you for that all-important sleep.

Consider having a cold shower post-Fortnite before getting in bed. It'll help you fall asleep ASAP. Click To Tweet

Give this a go for a few days and I challenge you to not feel better for it. Let me know in the comments below.

Related: Interestingly, despite the cold being fantastic for many things, here’s why we should avoid any use of ice when treating injuries.

Equip A Blue-Light Filter

Our reliance on technology has many hidden consequences, one of which has to do with blue-light. Emitted by the screens of our PCs, TVs, laptops, and phones, it can be disastrous for our sleep.

Our body relies in-part on changes to outside light, Circadian Rhythm, and the chemical Melatonin to regulate our sleep. Blue-light plays havoc with this.

By staring at your screen past sundown, you are effectively telling your body it’s still day-time. To then immediately try and drift off to sleep can be hard. This is why a blue-light filter is so important to consider.

If you were unaware, most smartphones have in-built filter options. iPhones have a night shift function, Android has night light, and there are numerous apps you can use to your advantage.

It’s important to mention that a blue-light filter won’t immediately improve your chances of getting yet another Victory Royale. Probably the opposite actually.

Filtering the light will affect Fortnite’s brilliant color scheme and make identifying enemies, editing and recording a little trickier. But 100% prioritize this on any device you use outside of Fortnite.

Unless you play solely on mobile (again, oof), you’d be silly not to test this out for yourself. It’s an easy boost to your sleep quality.

Protect Your Sleep

Despite its importance sleep is still so criminally underrated.

We spend approximately one-third of our lives asleep, yet how often do you consider your sleep habits? How much do you value them?

The consequences of poor sleep are generally well-known. You can’t expect to be at your best if you’re not sleeping the best. Your Fortnite gameplay can’t be on-point if your sleep isn’t.

Obviously longer and better quality sleep will instantly improve your gameplay but how can you make that happen when peak gaming often plays out during those hours?

Consider pairing your shiny new blue-light filter with some black-out curtains and a sexy Fortnite eye-mask (it’s a thing).

There’s evidence that any light source can trick your body into thinking it’s time to be more awake. An eye-mask is an obvious fix, but did you know that your skin is one of the body’s most light-sensitive organs?

You may have your eyes closed, but your skin may still detect that hallway or alarm clock light. Ever had an amazing night’s sleep when staying in a hotel? There’s a good chance they had some heavy-duty blackout curtains. Try your best to replicate it at home.

Pair these tips with a cold shower and some deep breathing for a good quality sleep. This will also help optimize the next day’s Fortnite gameplay as well.

Eat Real Food

This sounds obvious, but sometimes it just needs to be said – eat real food.

The human body is a machine fueled by actual food. If it’s processed it’s likely not the optimal fuel for long hours of solo squads.

If your car takes unleaded fuel, don’t keep forcing it to guzzle down diesel and expect it to perform. Make no mistake, the body does a great job buffering poor food choices. But you can’t be the best version of yourself mentally or physically if the basics aren’t there.

No athlete can function at their inherent best if their diet is poor and neither can you.

Generally, if it doesn’t rot or comes in a package it’s probably compromised.

Obviously do your research and go speak to a professional before making any drastic changes. But work out what you can do to optimize the foods you’re eating to better fuel the machine you play Fortnite with.

Drink Water

It’s obvious too, right? Similar to good food and posture, sometimes we just need a reminder.

In this instance, the body needs basic fluids to function best. Are you getting your 8 glasses a day?

There’s water in Chug Jugs, yeah?

The tricky thing here is that most don’t drink to re-hydrate, we drink for taste and “energy”. Sure a coffee has its performance benefits. But if you need one each morning to help you recover from all that restful sleep, then what’s really going on?

Perhaps reconsider any reliance on energy drinks, sports drinks and soft drinks (soda) for fuel. Again you may drink them for a specific reason, but what are you compensating for? Would they still exist with improved sleep and better nutrition?

In terms of dehydration, we know it can suck the life out of your mental and physical function completely unnecessarily. Even mild dehydration has been linked with poorer cognition, fatigue and greater stress.

I go on about this a lot, but the brilliant Stacy Simms of Osmo Nutrition recommends adding a pinch of good quality rock salt to your water to aid in absorption. It’s a little known fact that just pounding down the water alone doesn’t necessarily mean your body’s absorbing it.

Proper hydration can be a simple way to keep your mind and reflexes sharp long into the umpteenth final circle of the evening.

Exercise

Much like real food and water, we don’t have to overthink this one either do we?

The benefits are obvious but think of it this way – the body is wired for movement. It’s designed to be used in its entirety. If not used regularly it can become rusty and sloppy.

Fortnite gameplay exercises a lot of higher mental function and hand movement, but the rest of your body needs some love as well.

Clearly it’s hard to exercise while playing so this is another tip to help “future you”.

If you play Fortnite Battle Royale a lot, try and strike a healthy balance. Routinely hit the gym, engage in sport, or just go for a walk.

If that’s genuinely hard to stick to, consider making the rest of your life more movement rich.

Walk instead of driving, stand if you don’t have to sit, park further away, use stairs instead of the elevator. Why not get up and move between rounds? Bust out a few pushups, squats or your favorite Fortnite emote to keep you fresh.

The more you move the more you’ll offset gaming’s sedentary nature. More importantly, you’ll able to leverage this into better mental and physical performance.

The more you move the more you'll offset gaming's sedentary nature. More importantly, you’ll able to leverage this into better mental and physical performance. Click To Tweet

Mobilize Your Forearms

Similarly, consider doing some mobility work on your forearms. Many aren’t aware of the muscles that control your hands and fingers reside here.

Hours online can leave these tissues stiff and tight from constant use and poor posture. And tighter forearms lead to less responsive hands, wrists and fingers.

Imagine working through those quick builds and edits with a handbrake on. Smoothing out these tissues can give you a boost in power, endurance, and control.

Take a lacrosse ball and use it to gently press into your forearms. Move it around until you find some stiff and tender areas and go hunting all the way around. Traditionally the upper third of the front and back will need attention.

Alternatively, go through some basic wrist and forearm stretches. Keep your elbow straight and bend your wrist forwards or backward to find your best stretch. While under tension, gently try and tense up any tight areas for a faster release.

Why not throw on a traversal emote and get to work on those restricted areas.

Look After Your Neck

This one is very sneaky. Did you know that your hand and finger function is controlled by the nerves at the base of your neck?

Furthermore, guess which other areas of the body are constantly overloaded when gaming?

Clinically, the majority of non-traumatic hand, finger, wrist and forearm dysfunction has strong links to the neck.

Issues like Tennis Elbow, RSI, Carpal Tunnel and hand weakness, tingling and numbness can all be indicative of poor neck health.

Even simple neck stiffness can lead to a decrease in hand strength, motor control, precision, and fine motor function.

Simple neck stiffness can lead to a decrease in hand strength, motor control, precision and fine motor function. Click To Tweet

In short, it can make your fingers and hands weaker and more sluggish. Not good for when things inevitably get sweaty in Neo Tilted Towers.

To see what I mean, try this:

Practice some quick builds and edits, test out your aim or just go play. Get a sense of how those fingers are moving and how things feel.

Next, take another lacrosse ball to your neck and upper back. Go hunting for any stiffness and tightness. Let the ball gently press in until you feel like things free up. Then re-test what’s important. There’s usually an immediate uptick in function once the neck is working a bit better.

With this in mind keep an eye on your postures and ergonomics as mentioned before. If you can you’ll be ahead of the lobby in more ways than one.

Strengthen Your Hands, Fingers, and Forearms

Not many competitive Fortnite players will be out there pumping iron for an advantage, but there’s an advantage out there for you all the same.

Much like removing unnecessary tightness and stiffness from your forearms, actively seeking greater strength and endurance can compound increases in your technical proficiency.

Relentlessly using your hands, fingers, and forearms during Fortnite gameplay will improve your strength, endurance, and skill but using resistance can take things to another level.

Here are some simple areas to target:

Finger Extension:

Take a thick rubber band and hook it around your thumb and another finger. Practice separating those fingers until fatigued. Now move the band to the next finger and so on.

Wrist Extension:

Similarly, look at getting a theraband. Hold on to one end and use it to resist wrist extension until fatigued.

Wrist Flexion:

In the same manner, as the above wrist extension exercise, use a theraband to resist wrist flexion. Work until you feel those forearms fatigue.

Grip Strength:

Improving your grip strength is as simple as grabbing a fist full of bath towels and squeezing – a lot. Much like the rest, make sure you feel some really strong fatigue so your body knows it needs to come back stronger.

These simple exercises also make for a great pre-Fortnite warm up.

Conclusion

If you want to get better at Fortnite, look beyond just playing the game a lot.

There are a number of simple, peripheral ideas to consider. Ideas that can not only lead to better Fortnite gameplay but help you withstand any long-term ill-effects of the gaming lifestyle.

The pillars of better Fortnite gameplay are the same as any devoted athlete. Protect your sleep and fuel your body effectively. Learn to manage your stress and your body’s ability to cope with it. Move and use your body at every opportunity and work to make it stronger and more mobile.

By all means, go HAM at the game, you have every right to – it’s a really cool game. But if you want to get better at Fortnite Battle Royal or be more competitive in the Fortnite World Cup, make sure there’s a balance to the rest of your life.

If you want to get better at Fortnite Battle Royal or be more competitive in the Fortnite World Cup, make sure there’s balance in the rest of your life. Click To Tweet

It might sound strange for a Physiotherapist to be an advocate for spending hours online playing Fortnite. And despite how this reads – I’m not. If you have a choice between sitting inside, in front of your blue-light emitting screen, getting super stressed and pounding the energy drinks and junk food, or going outside, clearly choose the latter. Your body will thank you for it.

But if you’re an adult making adult choices, or a youngster having them made for you, then make the most of it. Strive to be the best version of yourself, not just the best. You deserve to.

We know that life often gets in the way of being a “perfect” human and that’s ok. But be aware that a healthier you is a better you. And a better you is better prepared to emote on the corpses of your enemies.

GG.

What are you doing to get better at Fortnite? Let me know in the comments below.

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