Athletes train their bodies year round to enhance their speed, strength, and durability to gain a competitive advantage. These are the characteristics that make an individual stand out in any particular sport. But traits that go under the radar in most athletic competitions would be vision and hand-eye coordination. In certain game situations where millimeters can be the deciding factor between making a play or missing it, a sharp sense of vision is crucial.
Sports Vision South is a training facility located in Alabama that focuses on training an individual’s visual and cognitive skills. This optometry center doesn’t conduct traditional eye exams, instead they emphasize in an athlete’s Dynamic Visual Skills. This set of skills is identified through a high definition screening process that measures visual acuity, contrast visual acuity, refractive error and visual edge evaluation. With the measurement of these particular set of skills, their state of the art technology will be able to pinpoint the deficiencies in the eyes and increase their effectiveness.
This type of training can evidently be used in the sport of baseball/softball, where making contact with the ball relies heavily on hand-eye coordination. But this is not the only sport where visual training would be beneficial. Football is a game where speed, strength, and agility are at the forefront of each player’s mind. But it is also a sport that requires intense concentration and awareness. Anticipation timing, concentration, and peripheral vision are just some of the Dynamic Visual Skills that can be utilized in this game.
Sports Vision South has also made positive strides in the realm of concussions. The company offers two other types of screening tests: The King Devick Test and the Dynavison program. Both of these tests can be used as a valid baseline of cognitive function that can be used after sustaining a blow to the head. These tests can determine if there is any difference in cognitive function at any point.
Another sport that can implement this type of training would be Motor Sport racing. This is a sport that requires you to see every minute detail of the track, while maneuvering your car to try and pass the other racers. Vision is a key element in this sport and if there is a mistake on the track the results could lead to a life threatening crash. Increasing your Dynamic Visual Skills will not only make someone a better driver, but it would also make the sport a lot safer for everyone involved.
Each sport requires a keen sense of vision and coordination to some extent. Sports Vision South can be viewed as the pioneers who started an innovative new way to train athletes. Their in-depth look at the cross between optometry and sports has proven to be beneficial to athletes in all different types of sports. More and more athletes will soon recognize this type of training as a valuable quality to their skill set and the standard for elite athletes will be raised.