Reaction Times

[argonfa]

When competing in video games it is very important to have fast reaction times and nimble fingers. I don't know that much about this topic but i was wondering whether body types affect gaming performance. For example, if one was playing on a mouse and keyboard with a very thin build. If they increased their muscle mass in their arms; would this decrease their reaction times and skill. My thought is that it would ruin muscle memory that was previously built. It would also take longer for the body's neurons to contract the arm muscles and move fingers in response to an event on the computer screen. I think that having a high muscle mass would cause the fingers to become less nimble and more stiff. Also i think that reaction times decrease once a person is past the age of 20. Is any of this true or backed up with any kind of scientific evidence?

[iNow]

The issue here is less about body type and more about practice. When we practice certain movements and motions, we become better and faster at those motions. There is "muscle memory" which builds up and the same action can be taken more rapidly and with less executive oversight from the more conscious parts of our brain. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

There are also elements of flexibility here. A couch potato will generally be slower than an athlete or martial artist, for example, but that too relates to practice more than body type.

[argonfa]

Ok so even if just by a few ms would the reflex action of pressing a button on a keyboard be slower for a a person with high muscle mass compared to a person with very thin arms. I am guessing that high muscle mass in arms would affect the reflex arc and reduce speed.

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by argonfa

[dimreepr]

24 minutes ago, argonfa said:

Ok so even if just by a few ms would the reflex action of pressing a button on a keyboard be slower for a a person with high muscle mass compared to a person with very thin arms. I am guessing that high muscle mass in arms would affect the reflex arc and reduce speed.

 

Depends on the twitch.

[studiot]

1 hour ago, argonfa said:

For example, if one was playing on a mouse and keyboard with a very thin build.

 

I don't follow what the keyboard thickness has to do with it, although some keyboard actions are slower than for other keyboards.

Some operating systems, eg Windows, allow setting the response time of keyboard and mouse, which must be significant.

Edited February 19, 2020 by studiot

[argonfa]

I dont mean the reaction time of a keybaord. Im asking if the speed that a person can press a keyboard in reaction to something on a screen is affected by muscle mass.

[iNow]

There may be an influence from muscle mass, but the more important influence comes from training. There is also the difference between fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. In this instance, fast twitch muscles will do better.

Think Bruce Lee versus Brian Shaw or Gregor Clegane (who played the Mountain in Game of Thrones). Both Gregor and Brian have significantly more muscle mass than Bruce Lee... by a few orders of magnitude... but they'd surely be slower than him because of the type of muscle and type of practice/training involved.

[Prometheus]

Many (all?) sports are suited to some people more than others. For instance sprinters tend to have those fast muscle fibres, distance runners slow muscle fibres. Not sure how significant this is to gaming reaction time though. There are loads of studies on body types and peak performance ages for traditional sports, couldn't see any on esports though.

What pro gamers are starting to discover though is that general health is pivotal to performance. Sleep, diet and exercise: the usual health advice of getting a balance. The finger tips may be where the intention manifests, but there needs to be a refined organism in its entirety behind them.

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

What pro gamers are starting to discover though is that general health is pivotal to performance. Sleep, diet and exercise: the usual health advice of getting a balance. The finger tips may be where the intention manifests, but there needs to be a refined organism in its entirety behind them.

Good point...