Boca Raton - Total Family Eyecare

Sports Vision - Giving you the Visual Advantage!

Think of your favorite sport; chances are your vision plays an important part in that activity. Coordination, concentration, balance and accuracy are just a few of the visually-related abilities you use during a sports event. Vision affects your batting average, racquetball score, pass completion and free throw percentages. The term "vision" and the growing field of "sports vision" apply to more than 20/20 eyesight, glasses or contact lenses. Vision involves many subtle and sophisticated links between your brain, muscle and eyes.

When you train for your sports activities, you probably work on your aerobic capacity, endurance, strength, muscle tone and/or flexibility. But optometrists, coaches and trainers now say you should train your vision as well. The stamina, flexibility, and fine-tuning of your visual system can sometimes provide you with the split-second timing you need to truly excel at your chosen sport. For some sports vision and other success stories, click here.

Important Role of Vision in Sports Performance
Even if you already wear prescription lenses or contact lenses, the visual skills you need for optimum sports performance probably need improvement. If you do not require a vision prescription, your visual skills may still be enhanced. These skills are developed from birth and learned as you grow; they can also be taught, enhanced and improved at almost any time during your life under the direction of a behavioral optometrist who understands how your visual system works.

Visual abilities such as visual acuity, accommodation (eye focusing), binocularity (eye coordination/eye teaming), oculomotor skills (eye movement), eye hand coordination, depth perception, peripheral vision, and visualization are all very important skills that are used in sports such as archery, baseball, basketball, football, golf, gymnastics, hockey, racquetball, shooting, skiing, soccer, tennis, and volleyball.

If certain skills are not up to par, you may subconsciously compensate and weak spots might develop in your game. These weak spots become obvious to your opponent who, depending on the level of competition, may play on them. Compensating behavior can include slowness or inconsistencies in one or more areas of performance.

The Visual Skills of Peak Performers
The skills you need for peak performance in your favorite sports are:

Dynamic Visual Acuity: which allows you to see objects clearly while in motion.

Eye Tracking: the ability to "keep your eyes on the ball," no matter how fast it may be traveling.

Eye Focusing: changing focus quickly and accurately from one distance to another.

Peripheral Vision: seeing people and objects "out of the corner of your eye" while concentrating on a fixed point.

Fusion Flexibility and Stamina: the ability to keep both eyes working together even under high speed, physically stressful situations.

Depth Perception: quickly and accurately judging the distance and speed of objects.

Visualization: picturing events with your "mind's eye" or imagination. Studies show that when you visualize yourself performing a particular activity, your brain doesn't know the difference between performing the activity or visualizing. Visualization can boost your confidence and aid in greater focus on your athletic goals.

Athletes' Vision in Training
Many studies show that professional athletes have much better visual skills than non-athletes. Tests conducted on athletes reveal they often have greater depth perception or better eye-hand coordination, as well as many other excellent visual skills. They often have a finely tuned visual system which helps them learn to anticipate and respond more quickly to complex visual conditions.

In addition many athletes actually train their vision. For example:

* Professional golfer Val Skinner visited her doctor of optometry complaining of "perceptual problems." After an intensive program with visual training and lenses she had several successful seasons and went on to be regarded as one of the top golfers on the LPGA tour.

* In One study, it was found that a group of professional basketball players improved their free throw average by 23 percent after a consistent 20-day visualization program.

* Well-known NBA player Kiki Vandeweghe suffered with an eye-coordination problem from childhood. After treatment with visual training and prescription lenses, he averaged 26.9 points per game in the 1986-87 season to become one of the top shooters of the league.

* Several members of the U.S. Olympic volleyball team were given visual training. Players Steve Salmons and Rich Duwelius experienced a subsequent 25-30 percent increase in their hitting averages.

Professional athletes and their coaches have found that vision can play such an important part in sports performance, it may be the one thing that keeps a good athlete from being an exceptional one. And, conversely, it can be the all-important factor that pushes a good athlete into a category of excellence.

Symptoms of Visual Problems
Following are a few of the symptoms you or your family may experience if you have a vision problem that affects your sports performance:

* Headaches
* Performance not up to potential
* Wearing prescription lenses, but leaving them off during sports
* Poor eye-hand coordination
* Performance worsens under high stress situations
* Little or no improvement with practice
* Making unusual errors
* Inconsistent performance
* Better performance on one side, or in one direction, than the other
* Avoiding sports or getting frustrated when participating in sports
* Early fatigue

For More Information
Not all optometrists practice behavioral optometry or can offer you a sports vision program. Dr. Lampert is a developmental/behavioral Optometrist. He has developed sports vision programs for professional and amateur athletes. He is also among only 350 in the world who have completed a fellowship in developmental vision. Contact our office for more information or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Lampert.

7035 Beracasa Way - Suite 101 (Powerline and Palmetto) Boca Raton, FL. 33433
E-mail: totalfamilyeyecare@comcast.net