Optometric Sports Vision Training – The Physical Edge

20/20 is NOT enough! Just having “normal” 20/20 eyesight and decent eye-hand coordination are not enough to maintain consistent superior athletic performance during practice or “peak” performances. Why sports performance suffers: Many athletes live with visual systems that give inaccurate and/or incomplete information. They deal with it by either over or under compensating during their game. Superior athletes require a highly precise and aligned visual system to be accurate EVERY time. Even with excellent coaching, practice and knowledge of the game, sports performance can be below potential with an inefficient visual system. The visual abilities needed to excel in sports are learned skills that can be enhanced, while bad visual habits can be unlearned.

Optometric Sports Vision Enhancement Training can optimize the following skills:

  • eye movement precision
  • target localization
  • eye-hand coordination
  • visual reaction time
  • depth perception
  • peripheral awareness
  • visual discrimination
  • vision-balance integration
  • visualization
  • distance estimation

Inconsistent or inaccurate performance is usually not due to an incorrect physical movement once properly coached. Poor performance is usually due to the movement being performed at the wrong time or place. Superior strength, ability or speed cannot make up for inefficient processing of information of the “where” and “when.” The visual system summarizes what is seen, then tells the brain to activate the muscles to execute a motor action. Vision directs the intelligent movement of the body (the eyes lead the body). The more accurate the visual system can take in and process visual information, the more accurate it can direct appropriate motor movement.

If the eyes are not exact in what they see or perceive, no amount of emphasis on mechanics will make up for visual inadequacies such as misreading the court, field or green (visual discrimination, visual figure-ground), misperceiving the alignment (eye tracking, eye teaming, focusing) or the speed at which the ball needs to be hit (visualization, depth perception, eye-hand coordination). The accuracy and consistency of visual information determines the timing and accuracy of the motor action.

What happens when your visual system is inaccurate:

  • Ball not always seen clearly
  • Over or under-estimating the distance of the ball
  • Difficulty making a specific “shot,” “pass” or “play”
  • Performance in competition deteriorates late in the game or under stress
  • Making similar mistakes again and again
  • Inconsistent performance
  • Fatigue You CAN optimize your visual skills through training.

Don’t let an inefficient visual system affect your game. Have your visual system analyzed so you can maintain a visual edge!