Chadley Kemp (preferably just "Chad") has nearly a decade of editorial experience spanning esports, gaming, crypto, and betting content, covering everything from Counter-Strike and VALORANT to League of Legends and Dota 2. Outside of esports, Chadley holds a Ph.D. in Physiology and has published research in several peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Image credit: EWC Anyone who’s crawled out of a tense ranked match or double-overtime game knows an all-too-familiar feeling. Your palms are sweaty, your heart is pounding, and you leave the match feeling as though you have been put through the wringer.
The only problem is that, apart from moving a mouse and tapping a keyboard, your body has barely moved. Even so, the mental strain alone is enough to leave even the best players feeling drained – but how hard is the body actually working?
A systematic review by Kotas and colleagues sought to answer that question by examining the available research on energy expenditure during esports.
Although the researchers identified 176 records, only five studies met the inclusion criteria. Overall, the studies found that esports games can raise energy expenditure above resting levels, albeit only slightly. More surprisingly, players’ heart rates can also climb sharply even while their metabolism remains close to idle.
Across the five studies, energy expenditure during esports generally ranged from approximately 1.3 to 2.5 calories per minute. That is equivalent to about 78–150 calories per hour, or roughly the amount of energy contained in one or two boiled eggs.
Importantly, these figures represent total energy expenditure, not the number of calories burned beyond what the body would normally use at rest. Even while sitting still, the body needs energy to breathe, circulate blood, power the brain, and keep every organ functioning.
The important question is, then, how many more calories a player burns while competing than they would have burned at rest.
A study by Nicholson examined 13 male esports players ranked within the top 10% of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, VALORANT, League of Legends, Rocket League, and Overwatch. Median energy expenditure increased from 1.28 calories per minute at rest to 1.45 during solo-queue ranked gameplay.
Across participants, the researchers calculated a statistically significant 17% increase. However, the difference between the reported group medians was only 0.17 calories per minute. If those rates remained constant across a hypothetical three-hour gaming session, roughly 261 calories would be burned while gaming compared with around 230 calories at rest.
In other words, gaming itself would add only 31 calories (about 10 extra calories per hour). We can’t dismiss it as nothing, but it is far too little to turn a ranked grind into a workout. The study also pooled players from different esports genres , so it cannot tell us whether a League of Legends match burns more energy than a VALORANT or Counter-Strike game.
Image credit: LoL Esports What the esports calorie studies found The table below compares the gameplay and resting values reported by four of the studies included in the systematic review.
Ketelhut and Nigg tested both League of Legends and FIFA. The single-player case report by Haupt and colleagues is discussed separately below because it compared gaming with cycling at a similar heart rate.
Note: The hourly figures are mathematical conversions from study averages, not personal calorie estimates…