The endless determination, high patience levels, and perfect coordination skills are the significant traits of a professional gamer. But did you know that the same characteristics are more than enough to make a great bodybuilder?As ironic as it may sound, these traits play an essential role when it comes to helping individuals attain their fitness goals.
Gamers can analyze challenges and form a progressive plan to complete them. They have an obsession with bettering certain skills and judge success based on the overall performance they give.
Gaming Motivation
Using Dick Talens and Brian Wang as examples, these two were the perfect definition of typical videogamers. Back in high school, Talens weighed more than 200 pounds and Brian Wang was a skinny teenager.According to an article by CNN, Talen disclosed that he used to play video games all day and eat a lot. Talen came to meet Brian at the University of Pennsylvania where they traded their video gaming love for weightlifting.
While sharing tales at the fitness center, they discovered that their healthy transformation was more natural than for most people. Using World of Warcraft players as an example, Talens points out that gamers are very aware about whatever they do from statistics to progressing to the next level. The same traits can be applied to fitness training and provide very fruitful results. Wang and Talens decided to commercialize the idea of turning gaming gurus to fitness experts. The two are co-founders of Fitocracy, a domain that's turning gamers into bodybuilders. Members of the Fitocracy program can "level up" by gaining points for their training. Fresh levels unlock unique challenges formulated to push members out of their comfort zone.
So, what would make a gamer switch from a controller pad to a pair of dumbbells and some performance enhancers from Musclesfax new address? Well, it's the same thing that made them fall in love with gaming to begin with.
How Does It All Work?
Experts on human motivation, such as Dr. Richard Ryan, discovered some of the primary mental needs that gaming satisfies.
First, the data provided to a user while gaming usually helps the gamer develop a mastery, which is very much a pivotal motivator. Data collection in bodybuilding helps in boosting your progress. Progress can be noticed when an individual performs more reps than usual or carries more weight in their training sets.
Another motivator in gaming is the feeling of independence and autonomy. People love it when they are in control of their lives and what's to come. In video games, users are offered the freedom to dress, improve character ability, and decide on which paths to take to accomplish your goal.
One user of Fitocracy, Michael Perry, says that the vital thing to him is the community on the site, which is similar to his favorite game, World of Warcraft. The community facilitates for the last mental need of relationships. Gamers have a mentality of 'I matter to them; they matter to me.' This mindset keeps users motivated so as not to 'fail' members of the community and end up successful in their mission, similar to completing game levels.
Conclusion
Motivation is not only for video gamers, but they do also have an easier time than regular people when it comes to achieving their fitness goals. Comparing video games to bodybuilding, I'd say it is all a quest to be better, stronger, and look better than when you started.