are you a former gamer that will fall back into it and live off of mountain dew and doritos?
do you prioritize gaming over training?

i was never an avid gamer, but i PC gamed a bit and consoled as much as any young male. I havnt played games past IOS games in a while. my daughter is getting to the age where she likes playing fun games on the Nintendo switch, so i use that time as "us" time.

its all about priorities and finding what you should invest your time in that makes you the happiest.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

Thanks. That's awesome... never a "gammer" & your perspective is what I in envisioned. Happy holidays.

I used to play video games a lot as a kid and even into my 20s, sucked up hours and days mashing buttons

Now I'm 37 and play occasionally with my 12 year old brother in law. The technology has progressed so much (graphics, screen size with UHD TVs, etc) that I get nauseous playing more than 30-60 minutes and have to take a break, and I would much rather watch a good show or read a book

It will be a fun activity to bond with your kid occasionally - I wouldn't worry about getting sucked in too much

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Strava

I'm 42 and have many vices/copying mechanisms.
Games is one of them, but I wouldn't put it as the most damaging. It's not even the worst time waster relative to others.
I'm just trying to balance everything in life. I'd say work+commute vs training+recovery is harder to balance. Computer games don't hurt much. You can count them as recovery time :)

Be careful, they're making a lot of non-children ones these days, watch for ratings. Your kid might want to play a game about a girl, and occasionally get something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TR0gaG01do

Triathlon actually kind of helped rescue me from borderline video game addiction in college. I still occasionally play some casual games, but having most of my current and local friend group be triathletes, instead of gamers, has made it much easier for me to stay away from the more hardcore gaming scene. Honestly, I think you'll be okay if you stick to single player games. They can be a lot of fun and a great relaxing evening activity. It's the multiplayer games with competitive scenes that generally draw people in to an unhealthy level. Thankfully, "most" of these games are on PC, so whatever you find on console will probably be more casual and a bit safer time wise.

TLDR: Stay away from WOW, LOL, CSGO. If you don't know what those stand for, don't even google it enough to get interested.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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Hi epic gamer here :P
My Playstation is definitely a thorn in my side. Although I don't let it get in the way of my training, instead I burn up any available free time I have that could better be utilized on house chores, educating myself more on training(being self coached) or getting a better nights sleep. Many times I have not gone to bed on time because of an online session. Basically it makes the procrastinator in me even worse. It definitely doesn't help when you play an mmo with a friend who also wants you to play.

WoW classic came out right before Nice WC, I played on launch but told all my friends I wouldn' t be playing until I got back from France. On my total week off from training I played 14hrs that Saturday. So yea it will definitely suck up your time if you let it.

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I find playing FPS games calms my brain down and helps me switch off from the day and seemed to reduce the severity of my insomnia. Probably helps that I suck at video games and don't care that my K/D ratio was well not good at all.

There used to be a group of us (3-4) way back in the day from ST that lived in different states & would regularly get together Friday afternoons and catch up over whatever Halo was out at the time.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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Honestly, I thought the same thing, but since I had kids (I have 3) whenever I would get a chance to sit down and play games, I am too tired. When my oldest (10 now) was younger, I bought a Madden football game for myself figuring I would love to play it. It is still in its packaging.

It is fun working with my kids to figure out the games. Or going against him in some of the racing and sports games. I rarely play games without him. Just how it worked out.

My kids got a Nintendo Switch now. It has most of the games he is into (except football for some reason). I like it because he can play it just on the gaming system and doesn't need a TV, so I watch TV while he plays his game.

I am 35 years old and have been a gamer all my life. Borderline addiction. Looking back I can see how serious it was. For me, the addiction was RPG games with leveling up and gear upgrades, especially online RPGs. I was in guilds/clans and typically the leader. Usually the most advanced guild on any given server that I was part of. That alone was a full time job that cut into other aspects of life. After marriage and my first child, I continued RPGs but not as the leader. Even that just stopped being possible. Two more kids later and a more complex job, I no longer play online RPGs. I know if I start I won't be able to put it down.

Currently I am a very good Rocket League player. The other game I occasionally play is PUBG. Rocket League is perfect for me because I can play competitively but the matches are guaranteed to be only 5-8 minutes. I can stop at any time.

As for training, I started this lifestyle after a cut back on gaming, so it was never an issue to balance the two.

Family > work > running > occasional rocket league

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"If it costs you 30 minutes at Maryland so what" -dwreal

I still play video games though I don't consider myself as an addict gamer.

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Easy. Just set up the trainer to ride while playing. I racked up a ton of aerobic miles a few years back while killing zombies. The tt position is perfect for also holding a controller. (Not pink)

Could pretty much get nearly to threshold on erg mode before having to focus more on the effort, but only on more mindless games. You would get active family time + training in at the same time.

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Adam Feigh
Pianko Law, Speed Hound, Castelli, Sailfish, Base
Feighathlon.com

i think you are asking the wrong question.
you may or may not have an issue with spending too much time on it, but you are an adult and can manage it (hopefully). your son/daughter will absolutely spend way too much time on it. it is addictive and kids just can't help themselves. then you get into endless fights over it, technology to limit it, etc.

OMG, controller in aero position, I have never thought about that!!! Thank you, that gives me some ideas for long rides

Similar here, but I mainly play Forza 6 online racing (Xbox), while doing trainerroad workouts by myself. :)

I tried playing multiplayer online COD, but I am just not fast enough at aiming to compete with the kids on there. The racing passes the time super fast.

I have a 9 yr old daughter. We spent many wonderful hours exploring Zelda breath of the wild together (at the time she was too young to hold the controller, so she was the back seat driver and I did whatever she told me to do), and she was actually able to watch me (and also backseat drive me) through the entirety of the Witcher 3 (NOT age-appropriate, but my daughter is really good with stuff like that, had zero problems).

It's oddly harder to share these experiences similarly now since she's old enough to play the games herself (better than I can in most cases) so no more back-seat driving =(

It didn't cut into my already limited training time despite the hundreds of hours racked up, as these mostly took place during times I couldn't train anyway since I had to watch her on weekends and evenings. Was nice to have another thing to do together in the arsenal of kids activities.

I would also add this def isn't for everyone - if you have for example a boy who would get totally addicted to these games immediately, I might hold off. My daughter doesn't seem to get addicted to stuff other than Netflix (which I limit) so it wasn't a problem to play video games with her.

I'm hoping to find a great coop we can do together soon!

I will add that my own personal video gaming has taken a big hit from life in general, then the kid, then triathlon, so it's a sad fraction of what I would otherwise like it to be.

ok firstly: what the f*** is that game about?? haha
secondly: xbox series x graphics are ridiculous, if this teaser is anything representative of its capabilities

video games and training for me always went hand in hand. knock out a solid day of training and on to the video games for recovery. coaches liked it because we were stationary and unlikely to injury our self doing stupid shit outside. plus playing video games on the weekend is the best way to ensure you don't go drinking and do something stupid =D

If all he wants is counsel regarding video games, it wouldn’t be too hard to give him a talk.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

It will truly show you if you’re comfortable in aero or not!

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Adam Feigh
Pianko Law, Speed Hound, Castelli, Sailfish, Base
Feighathlon.com

I frequented Left 4 Dead 2, Skyrim, and some others. Had to hit that sweet spot of being interactive but not super challenging. Something slow like Portal would drive me insane. Pretty glad I can ride outside a lot more now, but I occasionally miss my gaming as an ex-addict.

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Adam Feigh
Pianko Law, Speed Hound, Castelli, Sailfish, Base
Feighathlon.com

I think every adult should be playing 30 minutes of Fortnight a day, 3 days per week. If you have some gaming experience (I did college and before) you realize just how weak you become in things like reaction time etc which of course can be retrained and honed. I could see some positives for triathlon as this rolls over to it.

Anecdotally, my 5th grade nephew got me to play a game of Fortnite this summer and now I occasionally play with him. I honestly would have never thought he would been proud but he loves to tell his parents and friends about me playing and how much enjoys playing with me. A couple of the other kids in the family watch as we play - he has a time limit on how much he can play. It has been great bonding.

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Easy solution is to setup your acct as a child acct with screen time limits and have your wife in sole possession of the password needed to give more screen time. It's super easy. My kids are allowed to play 1 hr per day during the week and 3 hrs on the weekends. If it's a holiday and they're home all day on a week day its super easy to punch in the password and give them an extra hour or two.

37 and was never a gamer though played Halo in college. I had forgotten I ordered the google stadia. It came in about a month or so ago and I bought Red Dead Redemption 2....the end result was when I played I found myself up till 2 am a couple of times (usually hit the bed by 9:30). I tried playing while on the trainer and only averaged about 85-90 watts, it was horribly uncomfortable and gameplay was awful, so that was a fail. Now I'm trying to time box myself to one mission or one hour once or twice a week. Having not played in years these games are so incredible now that they are pretty engrossing and hard to put down.


Edit: I didn't tri TT position that would probably have worked better.

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Founder: BestBikeSplit
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I got Borderlands 3 for my birthday yesterday, and then stayed up until 3am playing it. That won't be a regular thing, but it's just soooo good. (I'm a fan of that franchise, been waiting for BL3 for a long time)

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