Ms. Ashley and Ms. Rachel from the OCVT Team have been attending baseball tryouts! Not because they want to be part of the team, but because they are spreading the word about SPORTS VISION!
As an athlete, you are always finding ways to improve your game – additional offseason practices, strength and conditioning, or individual coaching. These are some of the ways athletes can get a competitive edge in their sport, but with 80% of input being visual, this statistic is even more important for sports performance because vision is responsible for directing the body’s movement in the game or practice.[1] So why is vision enhancement sometimes overlooked?
Skills that can impact an athlete’s performance include:
- Dynamic Visual Acuity: Seeing moving objects clearly
- Eye Tracking: the ability to “keep your eye on the ball.”
- Eye Focusing: the ability to change focus from one object to another quickly and clearly.
- Peripheral Awareness: seeing out of the corner of your eye.
- Depth Perception: the ability to quickly and accurately judge the distance and speed of objects.
- Eye-Hand or Eye-Body Coordination: the ability to use our eyes to effectively direct the movements of our hands/body.
Teams like the San Diego Padres and players like Larry Fitzgerald and Stephen Curry attribute a lot of their success to the skills and visual stamina gained in sports vision enhancement programs. By making these skills the most efficient that they can be, players are able to “see the ball” even with their eyes closed. “…Fitzgerald, arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL, occasionally catches passes in games with his eyes closed like he has a sixth sense. However, his incredible skill did not manifest from some supernatural event, it is the product of years of rigorous training that tested both his physical and mental abilities, starting with a habits developed in his childhood.”
Contact OCVT about scheduling a sports vision screeners today!
References:
[1] http://www.covd.org/?page=Sports
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/agoodman/2014/06/17/arizona-cardinals-larry-fitzgerald-can-catch-a-football-with-his-eyes-closed-heres-how-you-can-too/#208c4c3f1349