Can visual training enhance sports performance?
Issue: Volume 28 Number 1
Many sports such as volleyball, tennis, cricket and soccer rely on the reception and processing of accurate visual information for superior performance. For example, in tennis, a receiver must be able to recognise the important cues from the server’s action and be able to visually track the ball in flight so they can prepare for an appropriate return. In soccer, players must be able to identify opponents and team-mates in their peripheral vision while controlling the ball. Given the obvious importance of the visual system in sporting environments, it is not surprising to see the emergence of a variety of visual training programs all purporting to enhance an athlete’s visual skills. This article provides a summary of the types of training activity that are available and, most importantly, which methods are most relevant in the sports setting.
Visual screening
Before commencing any type of visual training, a thorough, sports-specific screening should be performed for new athletes entering a sports program, particularly those in which vision is an essential element of performance. Visual screening is often overlooked, or is included as a minor element of a medical screening. However, a simple test of ‘what letters can you read on the chart’ is clearly an insufficient test of visual function for sport — there is much more to vision than being able to read 6/6 (normal vision being in the range 6/5 to 6/9). Instead, the visual tests should include a more comprehensive screening completed by a trained professional so that deficiencies can be accurately diagnosed. Subsequent screenings should be performed every two years, or every year for teenagers and athletes who are studying. Once an appropriate visual screening process has taken place, a training program can be implemented for those found to have a visual problem that is likely to impinge upon their sports performance.
General visual training
Many vision specialists, including optometrists, ophthalmologists and orthoptists, use eye exercises to treat problems with focusing, depth perception, eye tracking and muscular control. Eye exercises are frequently prescribed to assist those with visual deficiencies in much the same manner that a physiotherapist would treat an injury. The theory is simple: vision is learned and hence is trainable. For example, a hockey goalkeeper who is struggling to track an approaching ball may use eye movement and focusing exercises. Other exercises utilising optometric tools such as prisms may be prescribed to assist a tennis player with poor depth perception. While similar types of exercises have been used in general optometry for many years, controversy exists concerning whether this type of visual training can produce above-normal levels of vision and whether this ‘super-vision’ translates to enhanced sporting performance.
A number of do-it-yourself books and computer programs are now available to assist in sports vision training, with many of the suggested training methods replicating those used by the optometrists. While performing these tasks is unlikely to cause any detriment in performance, prescribing a complete visual training program to all your athletes in a team is considered inefficient, as such training should be individualised. Currently, there is very little solid evidence to suggest that generalised visual training programs can be utilised to improve the sports performance of athletes with normal vision. Those selling visual training programs typically base their evidence on anecdotal support, rather than carefully controlled research investigations.
Controlled research investigating vision and its relationship to sports performance has typically compared the visual functioning characteristics of expert and novice athletes. Results have consistently shown that experts are not endowed with supranormal levels of vision. Instead, their superiority is believed to stem from a range of perceptual skills that allow them to read the play or their opponent’s posture in order to extract the relevant information to guide their decision making and skill execution. Thus, attempting to improve visual functioning to above-normal levels is unlikely to result in enhanced sporting performance.
Sport-specific visual training
The new frontier in visual training appears to be in training the way that visual information is obtained, perceived and utilised. We can think of this by using a computer analogy whereby the eyes and visual pathways can be considered as the ‘hardware’, and the perceptual components of performance, including the ability to read the play and anticipate the actions of other competitors, considered as the ‘software’. The visual training we have considered so far has been training the ‘hardware’; however, if an athlete has normal visual function, then the focus should be on the development of their ‘software’.
Training strategies may involve the use of drills designed to encourage the performer to scan the field of play. For example, a common complaint from coaches is of a player’s lack of ability to pay visual attention to their team-mates. A point guard may be running the floor in a basketball game yet not notice the calls of free team-mates. If the player’s visual hardware is found to be functioning optimally, then it stands to reason that the player’s perception is not appropriately developed. It is likely the player’s vision is focused on aspects of the skill — most likely on controlling the ball and avoiding the player guarding them. Completing a training activity in silence may then be used as an activity to overload the use of vision so that the player with the ball has to scan more intently while team-mates need to position themselves so that they can be seen.
Summary
It is suggested that athletes first consult a visual specialist to instigate and maintain an appropriate screening program, after which athletes identified with visual problems can undergo necessary corrective action. Once this has been performed, further improvements will best come from sport-specific training programs that seek to optimise the use of visual information and develop the athlete’s perceptual skills , a topic which has been discussed in recent editions of Sports Coach (see further reading, below).
Further reading
Abernethy, B and Wood, J 2001, ‘Do generalized visual training programs for sport really work? An experimental investigation’, Journal of Sport Sciences, 19:203–22.
Farrow, D 2004, ‘Reading the play in team-sports: Yes it is trainable!’ Sports Coach, 27(3):12–13.
Farrow, D 2001, ‘Anticipation in time-stressed ball-sport’, Sports Coach, 24(2):26–7.
