Your body must be in excellent condition if you want to be competitive in sports. However, this doesn’t just refer to your muscles. Your vision needs to be excellent as well. Sports require several visual skills. In this two-part blog post, your trusted eye doctor will explain everything you need to know about sports and good vision. We’ll start by discussing visual skills:
Peripheral Vision
This is the ability to see things and people out of the corner of your eye while you are still concentrating on a fixed point. A sports competition is a flurry of activity, and there is plenty of movement at all times. You should have good peripheral vision to determine where the ball, the opponent or your teammates are most of the time.
Eye Tracking
Excellent eye tracking skills will help you keep your eye on the ball or puck. You need this skill to follow and predict, say, the ball’s movements. Good eye tracking will allow you to play a better game. This ability also enables you to maintain balance and agility.
Depth Perception
Your depth perception skill goes together with your eye tracking skill. For example, depth perception allows you to accurately measure the distance between you, your opponents, the ball and the basket. Fortunately, you can improve this skill during sports vision training by using a combination of home and office tracking techniques.
Eye-Hand-Body Coordination
This skill determines how well your hands, feet and the rest of your body work together in response to information provided by your eyes. Eye-hand-body coordination helps regulate your body control and timing, which is important in any kind of physical activity. In sports, strong eye-hand coordination determines your success, from putting on a golf course to passing on the gridiron.
Eye Focusing
This is the ability to change focus accurately and quickly from one distance to another, and it is important in all sorts of sports activities. For example, you need good eye focusing ability to have excellent shooting accuracy.
All sports vary in their visual demands. It’s best to consult a sports vision specialist to ensure peak performance. In addition to our sports vision services, Northern Virginia Doctors of Optometry can help with cataract treatment, perform comprehensive eye exams, provide pediatric eye care and more.
To learn more, call us at (703) 660-9494 if you are in Alexandria, (703) 413-1400 if you are in Crystal City, (703) 573-1200 if you are in Falls Church and (703) 467-9080 if you are in Reston. We serve Falls Church and other nearby areas in Virginia. Stay tuned for part two of this blog post where we will discuss Vima® Rev and how it can help you.