Vision and Behaviour in Sport Paper to The Sports Vision Association AGM 2004

1. Vision and Behaviour in SportPaper to The Sports Vision Association AGM 2004 Keith Holland FCOptom, FCOVD, FAAO, DipCLP

2. What is your definition of vision? Vision – the act and art of seeing. It is an act, because we do it! It is an art because we need to practice and refine it! … but do we really pay attention to how we develop visual skills?

3. What variables are there in the visual system? • We tend to think only of refraction, but what about... • Vergence • Accommodation • Movement • Central – peripheral awareness • Perception  …and how do they impact upon sport?

4. What effect could these variables have on how we behave? • Different sports place hugely different demands on vision and seeing • From intensive, focused attention, requiring excellent vergence control, to summative peripheral awareness, requiring good integration of centre and periphery • In many sports, the visual demands will keep varying during the game

5. The Chess Player • Consider a chess player • Requires intense concentration • Stress, autonomic response • Tightened diaphragm • Furrowed brow • Esophoria? • Multi-level inward thinking • Sequential processing  • Visualisation

6. -But what about a Rugby Player?

7. The Rugby Player • Peripheral awareness • Rapid response to movement • Pursuits • Visual / vestibular integration • Distance and angular judgment • How far and where in space? • Timing

8. The Archer • High level central acuity is all important • Accuracy and consistency between body and eye • Stability of vision when breathing

9. Are there subtypes of visual performance responses out there? • In athletics, one tends to think of explosive athletes • Especial demands on fast acting, twitch type muscle fibres? • Focused on goal, high demands on visualisation • Or…

10. Endurance athletes • Long distance • Repetitive • Stamina and endurance • Visually more peripherally aware

11. Airborne sport • Visually, the task here is periphery and global awareness

12. How do we identify subtypes? • Consider two possible visual subtypes • The exophore • The esophore  

13. The Exophore • Is usually “out there” • Avoids intense close work • Visually is good at global / simultaneous processing • Often very rapid visual responses • Driven by magnocellular system?

14. The Esophore • Is usually intensely involved in “the task” • Can be ignorant of surroundings • Tends to be sequential in processing • Often quite slow in visual response • Driven by parvocellular system?

15. How do these subtypes affect our performance? • Behavioural optometrists have for a long time espoused the links between visual subtypes and behaviour • We should stop just thinking about vision in isolation from the rest of the body

16. Body posture and vision • Selwyn-Super described how stomach exercises affect vergence – and vice-versa • Blowing out leads to divergence • Sucking in promotes convergence • There is a powerful link between how we see and our body’s actions

17. How does our performance affect our being? • There is an inextricable link between visual response and the stress mechanism (autonomic nervous system) • Stress is both a short term positive aid to performance – and a long term detriment to skill

18. Centering Where are you? Identification What are you? Anti Gravity Where am I? Speech & Language What can I tell you about it? Behaviour - Is it affected by how we see? Skeffington here attempted to link vision to body movement and thinking

19. The behaviours required in single sports • Calculation of where you are • Analysis of the task • Calculation of target position • Calculation of response • Action • Feedback • Modification of response

20. The behaviours required in team sports • Assessment of the opposition’s: • Place in space • Potential for movement • Second guessing their actions • Awareness of team members placing and movement • Decision and action • Feedback

21. Can the humble optometrist affect a change in behaviour? • Altering spatial awareness should change reactions and responses • Understanding how vision affects spatial awareness can affect how we prescribe • We are able to offer training for some of these issues

22. What tests do we have available to look for behaviour patterns? • Within the usual armory:- • Cover test • Convergence assessment • Fusional abilities • Accommodative flexibility

23. More specialised tests • Spatial localisation • Brock String • Spatial localisation board • NSUCO pursuits test • Pursuit eye movement analysis • Performance typing of the results

24. Space Board

25. The results..

26. Under action on left side Increased convergence Right side better The results..

27. Impact on sport • This player will have more difficulty on their left hand side • They may well under-reach • They may under-estimate distances • Can this be used to help predict team placement?

28. How can we advise the sports coach about his players? • Analysis of the needs of the task • Analysis of the player’s visual strengths and weaknesses, and profile • And then either: • allocating the player to the task he suits best or • Developing his skills to match the needs of the sport

29. Can we train the player to play differently? • In a word, YES! • Balance development • Vergence development • Spatial localisation training • Visual flexibility training • Multi-task training • Visualisation training

30. Lenses, prisms and all that stuff • Lenses can alter spatial awareness • Use the space board or Brock string • Anisometropia (and it’s correction) can significantly affect lateral performance • Consider contact lenses – even for low plus powers • Lenses can be used to make life harder in training (consider weight packs)

31. Lenses, prisms and all that stuff 2 • Use prisms (yoked) to change visual demands when training • Deep coloured tints (Blue and yellow) are known to alter processing timing in the magno and parvo systems – why not use for training too?

32. Training - it’s more than an ergo! • Optometrists should be offering sports vision training programmes locally • We should aim for this to be an accepted area of vision care in this country within five years • BABO offers training in vision therapy that is highly relevant to all sportsfolk

33. Vergence training with accommodative flexibility Wayne Fixator C/p skills & speed Some training ideas Hand / eye coordination and timing

34. The future - what place optometry? • On the international stage, we lag behind the rest of the world • Maybe we can help to turn this… Into...

35. Thank you!