Visual problems and sports performance

Borrowed from Vision Learning Center blog. We are realizing how much Will's vision issues effect every aspect of his life. It has become painfully obvious watching him play in his soccer games. His timing is off, he misses the ball, he jumps when he shouldn't. We are realizing it could be in big part to his vision. Articles like the one below help explain why it effects sports performance.

Efficient Visual Skills & Contact Sports - Gaining The Upperhand On Your Opponents

Friday 14 May 2010 | Posted by Dr. Mary McMains

Good Coaching and Talented Athletes are NOT Enough
Even with excellent coaching, practice and knowledge of the game, sports performance can be below potential with an inefficient visual system.  Many athletes live with visual systems that give inaccurate and/or incomplete information.  They deal with this by either over or under compensating during their game. Once properly coached and physically trained, inconsistent or inaccurate athletic performance is usually not due to an incorrect physical movement.  Poor performance can be caused by the movement being performed at the wrong time or place. 
You want an athlete to trust their eyes and react quickly to what they see.  You do not want an athlete to second guess or take the time to compensate around inaccurate visual input. 
Many professional coaches and teams consult with behavioral sports optometrists to help with picks, analyze the team and train individual athletes in areas such as volleyball, baseball, hockey, football, shooting and golf to provide them with a competitive edge and to ensure their athletes are performing at their very best.
Efficient Visual Skills are Vital to Consistent Sports Performance
Seeing clearly and good eye-hand coordination is NOT enough to support superior sports (or academic) performance. Elite athletes require a highly precise and aligned visual system to be accurate EVERY time.  Superior strength, ability or speed cannot make up for inefficient visual processing of the “where” and “when” of the ball and body.  Vision directs the intelligent movement of the body (the eyes lead the body).  The more accurately the visual system takes in and processes visual information, the more accurately it can direct precise motor movement. 
What is Vision?
Vision is a dynamic, always changing process of organizing, interpreting and understanding what is seen.  It is a process that integrates sensory and motor information generated by the eyes, brain and body to derive meaning and direct movement. 
It involves 70% of ALL pathways of your brain and integrates with all the other senses including vestibular (balance) and proprioception (knowing where the body is at all times).
Using your eyes to gain reliable and accurate information is important when you do the following:

• Interpret the distance of the ball, the net and other players in relation to yourself
• Estimate or follow the trajectory of the ball
• Motor plan to correctly calculate the effort needed to impact the ball
• Coordinate the eyes and hands to impact the ball in the way intended
• Maintain the right amount of visual attention and awareness of the ball, net and players at all times

Visualization is a vital visual skill and an important area to train for ANY athlete.  It is a fact that true professionals visualize more clearly and obtain more reliable information than average players.  Proper visualization primes muscle memory and can guide efficient action even before it is executed.
Binocular vision is necessary for three dimensional viewing.  It gives you figure ground relationships, visual balance, depth perception, and distance judgment.
How a Sports Vision Screening Can Benefit You
Sports vision screenings obviously do not provide you with ALL the information you need on your players.  It is a piece of valuable information that can give you a considerable competitive edge. 
Visual skill analysis can help you with the following:

• Aid in picking your team by providing more information on potential players
• Understand your players’ visual strengths and weaknesses
• Provide additional information to help position your players
• Remediate visual inefficiencies to improve your player’s performance

Just like any skill, visual skills CAN BE TRAINED.
Visual Skills Screened

• VISUAL ACUITY - This is a measure of eyesight, or how clearly you see. This ability affects visual discrimination and reaction time.
• REFRACTIVE STATUS - The amount of nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia) and/or astigmatism as well as the equality of power between eyes (anisometropia).  Refractive status is related to clarity of sight and the effort with which clarity is maintained during a match.
• EYE MOVEMENT CONTROL – The ability move both eyes from one point to another (saccades) and smoothly track an object (pursuits) with speed and precision.  These abilities relate to accurately keeping the eyes on the ball.
• FOCUS FLEXIBILITY - The ability to modify and maintain clarity of focus with varying changes in target distances.  Focusing is involved with all aspects of play, particularly at a high level of performance.  This ability relates to the effort to maintain clarity of the ball, players, net and sidelines at all times and is a significant factor in visual fatigue.  Testing conditions are performed with both a distant and near target.
• EYE TEAMING FLEXIBILITY - The ability to keep both eyes simultaneously aligned on a target with changes in target distances, and maintain this alignment in various positions of gaze and during dynamic balance to keep the target fused into one image.  Eye Teaming is involved with all aspects of play, particularly at a high level of performance.  This ability relates to the maintenance of depth perception, spatial localization and can adversely affect effort and fatigue.  Testing conditions are performed with a near target, distance target, under stress and in motion.
• DEPTH PERCEPTION - A product of good eye teaming, fine depth discrimination is the ability to accurately judge and react to distances between objects in three dimensional space quickly and with precision. This ability relates to the prediction of the position of the players, ball and net, as well as the SPEED at which these judgments can be made.
• SPEED & SPAN OF RECOGNITION – The ability to take in an amount of visual information over a unit of time.  This ability relates to the speed at which an individual can recognize that a change in visual input has occurred.  It is key in making a quick response.      
• CENTRAL-PERIPHERAL INTEGRATION – The ability to recognize and respond to information in different areas of the visual field while still maintaining focus, fusion and visual attention on the target.  This relates to all game situations and is key in motor planning, maintaining court position, awareness of other players and reaction time.  Testing conditions are performed with no additional distractions and under stress (with a balance board).
• EYE-HAND COORDINATION – The ability to visually know where an object is and make the appropriate visual motor response by controlling, guiding, and directing the hands with coordinated visual input.  This ability relates to making the correct visual-motor responses when hitting or digging the ball. Testing conditions are performed with no additional distractions and under stress (with a balance board).
• VISUALIZATION – The ability to picture something in the “mind’s eye.”  This ability relates to remembering plays, court position, learning from past experiences and planning future action.