If you have ever lunged for a tennis ball only to hit it with the edge of your
racket and send it flying off the court, or swung a cricket bat to find
yourself spectacularly wide of the mark, it may not be your technique that’s
at fault.
If the seven little muscles in your eye aren’t working together, and at their
best, it can mean the difference between coming top of the Saturday league
or languishing on the subs’ bench.
To be at the top of your game, 20-20 vision is near essential to any athlete,
but a study of competitors conducted at the 1992 Olympic Games and the 1994
Winter Games indicated that only 50 per cent had had an eye exam and one
participant in four admitted to visual difficulties. Not what you’d expect
from the average Olympian.
This year, the athletes heading to Beijing in 2008 to represent Great Britain
are getting an ophthalmic overhaul, with sports-specific sight tests and
sports vision training on offer in the run-up to the Olympics.
“Even in elite groups of athletes, 40 per cent have visual problems. Yet, with
careful correction, they could improve their game markedly,” says David
Ruston, an optometrist and the director of professional affairs at Johnson &
Johnson Vision Care, the company offering the tests and the training. An
online coaching programme, downloadable to the athlete’s computers, will
track their performance.
Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson, who won silver in the badminton doubles at the
2004 Olympics in Athens, were the first to take the test, earlier this year.
Like many athletes, Robertson had never considered getting his eyes tested.
His partner Emms was the driving force behind the pair choosing to attend
the test. “I had a lazy eye as a child, so I knew it was important to get
these things checked,” she says. “But if you’re performing well, you don’t
always think about it. Then our coach started talking about how much your
vision could impact on your performance so I was keen to come along.”
The test, which took about an hour and will be available in a simpler,
high-street form in the next year, consists of a traditional eye examination
and a series of customised tests designed to measure depth perception
(locating items in space), ability to see targets in motion, peripheral
awareness, reaction times, focusing ability and contrast perception
(separating objects from their background).
They both performed well in the peripheral vision and reaction-time tests, but
the overall results revealed that while Robertson had near perfect vision –
Ruston dubbed him an “ophthalmic superstar” – Emms suffers right-eye
dominance. Because of this, her eyes do not coordinate well when she is
looking up. “This is a problem with binocular vision; using both eyes
together,” says Ruston. “Good binocular vision, when both eyes are working
equally well, is linked to better depth perception. A problem in this area
affects your ability to know where an object is in relation to its
environment.”
For Emms, whose sport relies on hitting the shuttlecock at exactly the right
moment and with the right part of the racket, improving her depth perception
could make her shots more accurate. “I hate that I’m not as good as Nathan,
but it’s important to know about this so I can train my eyes. If doing that
can give me an edge, even if it’s just a confidence boost or a quarter of a
per cent improvement, I’m prepared to really work at the programme,” she
says.
Emms and Robertson will undertake the online training programme, with Emms
concentrating on her binocular vision. Alongside the online training, both
athletes will do peripheral awareness and reaction-time training (see panel
right) with the visual trainer Michel Guillion, who has worked with the
Chelsea football team.
“Research shows that there is a connection between optimised vision and
overall performance,” Guillion says. “With visual training, we can
strengthen the eye muscles, improve focus, contrast and depth perception,
increase peripheral awareness and reduce reaction times.” A 1996 study for
the International Journal of Sports Visionon the impact of visual
training on cricket players revealed that specific visual training improved
a batsman’s ability to judge where the ball will hit the pitch. Larger US
studies also indicate that baseball players who get visual training improve
their batting average.
For consumers, once the 300 to 500 optometrists have completed their training,
sports-specific eye tests and visual training will be available across
England. They will be offering a range of sports vision training, akin to
the professional athlete’s version, alongside the sport-specific eye exam,
which will cost £25 to £40. “Even for amateurs, a sports-specific
examination will help perform at their best,” says Ruston.
For more information, visit sportvisionuk.com
or college-optometrists.org
Visual workout If you want to improve your sight for sport, try these
exercises designed by the optometrist David Ruston. He recommends sessions
of 10 to 20 minutes, three to four times a week. And remember to wear the
glasses or contact lenses you normally use
MIRROR ROTATIONS
This improves eye-movement accuracy, the ability to keep your eyes on target
while moving.
Especially good for racket sports, ball games.
How to do it Stand in front of a mirror and slowly move your head from
side to side, up and down, while looking into your eyes.
FOLLOWING A TORCH
There are two types of eye movement, persuit and saccadic. In persuit your
eyes follow a target as it moves through space. In saccadic your eye jumps
to where you expect a target to be.
Especially good for racket sports, cricket and football.
How to do it: persuit Stand in a semi-dark room and run a torchlight
over the wall varying the speed and position of the light. Follow the light
as accurately as possible.
How to do it: saccadic Switch the torch on and off rapidly as you move
the torch. Make your eyes jump across the wall to catch the torchlight.
PERIPHERAL AWARENESS
This will improve your ability to see objects and movement on the margins of
your vision.
Especially good for team sports. How to do it While maintaining
concentration on a fixed target try to heighten your awareness of the
environment around you. Begin with static items and describe them as best
you can, then check to see what you got right. To increase the difficulty,
move to a busy place and concentrate on people’s movements around you. Can
you recognise who they are, what they are holding?
For more exercises, timesonline.co.uk/healthfeatures
