Vision Training For Triathletes
Go to the gym regularly three times per week to tone your muscles. You run gruelling intervals to boost the lactate threshold. You abstain from having dessert to remain in excellent physical condition.
Nice work. Before congratulating yourself, ask yourself this: Are you not utilizing your most beneficial physical ability? Every action you take, be it bombing down a single bike track or shooting hoops, starts with looking ahead.
Additionally, you can train your eyes to work more effiExactly, exact that you can interpret visuals that become better, not your sight. Only glasses, contacts, or surgery can correct poor eyesight. Heed our warning regarding proper eye care and fitness and you will actually experience the improvement.
Barry L, an ophthalmologist, is the creator of the Visual Fitness Institute located in Vernon Hills, Illinois. SSellerhas developed vision-improvement programs for the U.S. Ski squad, top-tier baseball clubs, and high-level tennis athletes.
Vision training boosts productivity by quickening the rate at which one can acquire and examine visual data. Headley, 23 and a third baseman for the Padres, states that through exercise he can perceive the ball faster, thereby shortening his response time.
Try these techniques, adapted from Seiller’s method and optometrist Thomas Wilson’s SportsVision: Training for Superior Results, to enhance your vision. Train four times a week, spending three minutes on each exercise. Reduce frequency as you master the skills.
Skill: Hand-Eye Coordination
Accurate and rapid coordination between the hands and eyes enhances efficiency in all athletic activities, ranging from rock climbing to tennis.
Drill: Thread the Spaghetti
Have a buddy position a drinking straw horizontally at a distance of around 16 inches away from your face. While not looking at your hands, try to thread two uncooked spaghetti pieces into both ends of the straw at the same time. Do the same exercise again but change the distance and where the straw is placed.
Skill: See-Think-React
High-speed sports require split-second reactions to visual cues. Canoers and mountain cyclists take in the sight of a rock and then process the visual data before performing manoeuvres to dodge the impediment. The quicker you complete the first task, the simpler the next one will be.
Drill #1: Eye on the Ball
Gather a few footballs (Nerfs work well). Write a number on the end of each ball. Get someone to toss you a ball; before you catch it, yell out the number inscribed on the end.
Drill#2: Beanbag Toss
Have someone stand a few feet away from you and throw a beanbag either to the left or the right side of you, but make sure it’s close enough for you to reach. When your buddy throws the bag, they will shout out either “left” or “right.” Direct your attention to the appropriate side and snatch the bag. Look straight ahead to enhance your ability to see peripherally.
Skill: Near/Far Focusing
Biking, skiing, and playing ball sports necessitate the capacity to concentrate on nearby targets (stones, bumps, quick initial serves) and then promptly transition to distant objects (a turn on the course, trees downhill, the net).
Drill: Rapid Eye Movement
Stand ten feet away from a bookcase. Keep a book or magazine in front of your eyes at a distance of several inches, with the page displaying tiny words facing you.
Scan through a few lines of the magazine and afterwards take a glance up and ascertain the name from the edge of a book that is on display. Go between reading small, clearly written words and distant headings. The goal is quickness and accuracy.
Skill: Peripheral Vision
Quarterbacks and point guards are frequently lauded for their ability to “see” the game or removed from a game for being unable to do so. It is important to be conscious of your surroundings, both in front of and behind you, regardless of whether you are playing a pickup game or going for a spin with a crowded cycling group.
Drill: Look Wide
Produce multiple documents with letters and numbers in 72-point font size. Attach the documents haphazardly to the walls in the corner of a room.
Get your friend to use a laser pointer to identify various pages, and look at the corner while saying the words and numbers aloud. To achieve the best results, stay a distance of somewhere between three and six feet away from the corner.
The essential factor in safeguarding your eyesight without impairing your vision is opting for the appropriate sunglass lens—such as amber or yellow.
According to Robert Bailey Jr., an ophthalmology instructor from Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, a tinted lens may provide comfort to athletes as it reduces the light entering the eye, however, this could be reducing the sight they can see.
Use this chart as a reference to assist in selecting the appropriate lens for the lighting circumstances and activity, even though personal colour preference still exists. Select a pair of lenses that will not break easily and offer protection from both UVA and UVB radiation.
Rose can make small details stand out when the light is not ideal, and it also intensifies the view of landscapes against a blue backdrop. It is recommended for urban scenes, car rides, snowy conditions, and water activities.
Orange hues boost the contrast and depth of shadows in semi-lit settings. This makes it optimal for activities like skiing and playing ball sports.
The colour yellow can be beneficial for activities that are done in low lighting. It increases clarity, making it an excellent choice for biking, mountain biking and running.
In cloudy weather, greens make yellows and reds appear more intense. It is ideal for activities like driving, fishing, golf, and whitewater kayaking.
A unique lens that emphasizes yellow, making it stand out; ideal for playing tennis.
Blue/Grey lenses reduce the intensity of glare and preserve the natural hues of the environment. These lenses would be ideal for activities such as sea kayaking, ocean fishing, and surfing.
On days with bright sun and mixed clouds, brown or amber lenses increase your ability to judge distance and reduce glare, making them ideal for outdoor sports. They also help reduce eyestrain caused by haze.
Grey lenses block out the intense sunlight while still allowing you to view colours in their most vivid form. They are ideal for activities such as running, cycling, hiking, or water sports.
Clear lenses are beneficial for providing physical protection to the eyes in dimly lit situations, like 24-hour bicycle competitions, night skiing, and adventure racing.
Lasik Pros and Cons
Professional athletes are now turning to laser eye surgery as a way to gain a competitive edge. The appeal: It’s legal—and the results are beyond dramatic.
Tiger Woods, previously unable to see without the aid of corrective lenses, received corrective laser eye surgery in 1999. After the procedure was completed, his vision was upgraded to a 20/15 rating.
He was able to perceive things from a distance far greater than what a person with perfect eyesight can see from 15 feet away, and consequently had the strength to go on and seize six consecutive championships. Greg Maddux underwent an operation and proceeded to go undefeated in 11 of his next 12 contests.
Team players who need to rapidly make choices on the field or court based on what they observe must have a well-developed visual memory capability to succeed.
Conversely, exceptional visual recollection is not essential for bowlers as they perform in a fairly static setting.
Soccer and tennis athletes must have good coordination between their eyes and feet, while it is essential for basketball players to have good side vision. The ability to perceive differences in light intensity is a vital visual aptitude for skiers, who require the capability to recognize all of the shades in the snow before them so they can decide when to take a turn.
Eye dominance, focus flexibility and other sports vision skills
Here are a few more basic sports vision skills, some that you can practice at home:
Focus Flexibility
This is the capacity to switch concentration from a distant object to a nearby one, or the other way around. People aged over 40 may recognize that they are beginning to lose the capability to accommodate and may require glasses for reading, multifocal spectacles, or bifocal contact lenses to make up for this.
It is not possible to significantly enhance your ability to switch focus quickly with vision training or eye exercises when decreased focus flexibility is caused by presbyopia. Nevertheless, everybody can train to be able to concentrate on changing attention between far-off and nearby subjects.
Quick Tip
Switch between looking at your computer monitor and a photograph on the wall in the opposite corner of the room or something outside the window at regular intervals. This can not only enhance your ability to shift attention, but it can also ease the discomfort of your eyes from extended screen use.
Peripheral Awareness
This capacity includes being able to sense what is happening on both sides of you without swivelling your head. Optometrists assess any reduction in peripheral sight by having you keep your gaze focused forward while small lamps beam off to the sides in different directions.
Quick Tip
To improve your vision to better your sports performance, try looking at a busy scene while turning your head to one side. This could be done while watching television, using a computer, or walking down a sidewalk. Make sure to practice using both hands.
Dynamic Visual Acuity
Dynamic visual clarity allows you to comprehend objects accurately while they are in motion rapidly. You may be able to read an eye chart accurately without correction when stationary.
When there is movement, your ability to see clearly may be diminished. In sports vision testing, you could possibly be required to observe items or words that rapidly go across a computer display and then recognize them before they vanish.
Quick Tip
For those who own an old-style record player, the American Optometric Association has a suggestion to improve their dynamic visual acuity: Cut letters from a magazine of varying sizes, place them on the turntable and attempt to identify them from a distance as the record spins round.
Try varying the speed at which you complete the task (33, 45 and 78 revolutions per minute, or rpm), and then move on to smaller letters if the exercise becomes too simple.
Depth Perception
One’s eyesight allows one to make spatial decisions, including estimating how far away something or someone is. A technique to evaluate this ability is distinguishing figures or shapes blended within scattered dot-filled backdrops.
Some of these abilities depend strictly on physical characteristics. It is theorized that the gap between the centre of your pupils (pupillary distance) is an essential factor in determining your three-dimensional vision.
Have you ever tried to screw the lid onto a pen but failed? Work on your depth perception from a distance to improve it. You can try putting a tiny pebble or BB in the straw from a distance and let it fall into the straw.
Colour Vision
Being able to differentiate between various hues is a critical skill to have when playing sports like football.
There is an additional challenge that athletes with a colour deficiency have to deal with. The most frequent colour blindness is a failure to differentiate between red and green, thus making it hard to spot a red-brown American football on a green-hued field.
Tests for colour blindness involve sets of cards with a combination of random dots of one colour and objects of a different colour. If the object is not visible, it is impossible to tell the difference between the two hues.
Certain tinted glasses can amplify certain hues, such as yellow, by blocking out other shades. Even if you don’t have difficulty distinguishing colours, improving the hue of a sphere (such as a yellow tennis ball) may aid you in seeing it better, thus affording you more time to react to it.
Eyeglasses and contacts that aid in improving performance in sports can be customized with diversified colours for individual activities.
Quick Tip
You can’t hone your ability to visualise colours if you have colour vision deficiency. However, some optometrists in the US are capable of providing colour blindness-specific tact lenses.
These glasses with specialized tints aid those with colour vision issues in improved recognition of an object from the environment it is in by making the hues of certain colours more distinct.
Hand and Eye Dominance
Figuring out which eye is predominant could help athletes figure out ways to better enhance their athletic skills.
Most athletes are aware if they are predominantly right- or left-handed, and they arrange their physical activity accordingly. People may not be aware that their primary eye could be processing vision-related data more effectively and exactly than their non-preferred eye.
For instance, recognizing which eye is the dominant one can aid an athlete to attain suitable head and eye direction to observe quick play in sports such as baseball or basketball.
A few athletes have a condition called cross-dominance, which involves a right-handed individual being more dominant with their left eye or a left-handed person being more dominant with their right eye.
This can provide a benefit in certain sports, but could possibly be a major disadvantage in sports like bow hunting and shooting at a target when one side of the body is utilized to both lines up and fire.
Quick Tip
When shooting at a target, it is more effective if the dominant hand and dominant eye are both on the same side of the body.
If you have difficulties hitting your goal, it may be due to being cross-dominant. You might need to modify your approach, such as changing the hand you usually use to grip your gun so you can view the goal with your dominant eye.*
Sports vision training for serious athletes
It could be a good idea to visit a sports vision expert to help improve your sporting results and be tested. A doctor of the eyes who focuses on a vision for athletics can provide valuable tips about unique types of eyeglasses like safety goggles for sports and lenses with tints that improve performance.
A professional can also create a structured plan of sports vision training to respond to your particular requirements.
