When athletes hear the word training, their first thought is about something physical. Training their legs to be a faster runner or training their arms to be able to lift more. What doesn’t come to mind too often is training their eyes.
Vizual Edge Performance Trainer is a program developed by Dr. Barry L. Seiller to help athletes train, test, and improve their visual skills.
The program can be purchased and used online for athlete’s convenience. Before, to get visual training, people would have to go to a specialized eye doctor’s office.
“You would have to spend a great deal of money and time to go to their office to do this. Our program allows people in dorm rooms and busses with internet access and training facilities to use the program,” said Dr. Seiller.
The way the program works is that it is a series of 3D computer-based sports vision improvement tools. Athletes are able to log online at any time of the day and complete the training exercises by using a joystick, mouse, or keyboard. The program is made to be used one to three times a week for 6 to 30 weeks, with each session being up to 20 minutes.
“Our program is a series of exercises for users to evaluate their visual skills. It gives users a ranking out of 100 points known as an “Edge Score”. Then it gives some feedback about what their strengths and weaknesses are visually, and provides recommendations for training,” said Kathleen Puchalski, Vice President of Vizual Edge.
Going more into how the program works, it is not designed for specific sports, but for specific skills needed in sports. Some visual skills that can be worked on through the program are reaction time, speed of focusing, depth perception, and eye flexibility.
“You have to treat each user as an individual. Understand that the visual demands of baseball, hockey, lacrosse, tennis, and softball are similar, but basketball, soccer and golf have different visual demands. People use their visual skills differently for those various sports,” said Dr. Seiller.
For example, a baseball player can use Vizual Edge Performance Trainer to know when to swing or throw a ball by training their speed of focusing and processing, as well as their reaction time. A hockey player can train his or her accuracy and depth perception to be able to score more goals.
“With visual skills, we are talking about how your eyes line up on a target, whether that’s a ball or a target that you’re looking at, or a car, or any other object… Being able to track an object, visual memory or visual recognition. Going up against previous teams that you’ve been involved with before in previous situations and what you did to respond to those stimuli, said Puchalski.
While Vizual Edge Performance Trainer’s main use is for athletes, it is also used for occupational training and the military, and even to help kids with reading.
“Let’s not limit this to sports… There are also occupational demands in the civilian world and the military world. If you are a computer programmer, you need to have certain skill set-ups… Also, driving a car. Being an air-traffic controller. You need those good, visual skills in order to do your job well,” said Dr. Seiller.
No matter if you’re an athlete, a high school student, or in the military, the Visual Edge Performance Trainer is cost-effective and fun. It is available for access anywhere that has an Internet connection and is going to be tablet compatible soon.