Visual training, essential for athletes
The sport of elite has reached such a point that both trainers and medical specialists recommend eye training to improve sports results. And is that visual training is already as important as physical training because this technique increases the performance of athletes up to 18 percent.
However, although currently soccer players, motorcycle riders or cars or tennis players already resort to it, for the rest of the population it is equally important. Only 5 to 15 minutes a day is enough to perform visual training, essential for athletes.
Visual training can be practiced by anyone who wants to optimize the operation of their visual system to achieve a more efficient vision. It is especially indicated when a person's visual abilities are not adequately developed or a person fails to coordinate vision with other senses. It is also recommended when the following symptoms appear: headache, double vision, reduced performance of visual functions, discomfort and eye fatigue.
Visual training is also very useful when the visual problem, myopia, presbyopia or eyestrain, strabismus, amblyopia, astigmatism, is getting worse or there is a poor coodination between vision and body movements
Objectives of visual training
- Complete the development of the visual system.
- Improve school delays in learning.
- Conserve the visual system in optimal operating conditions.
- Remedy eye and visual problems in case of prevention of myopia, eye and eyestrain, etc.
- Get better in case of amblyopia, strabismus and ocular muscle paralysis.
- Improve the visual capacity of athletes, in speed reading and in the quality of vision in general
Stages of visual training, how is it done?
1. General visual training. A series of tests run by a specialist are developed to see how the user visually develops in certain situations. What kind of exercises are done? For example, in the case of footballers, a line is drawn on the ground and, while walking on it, you should go reading some posters that will be in front of it. In this way, you learn to control more the visual capacity attending to different elements, achieving greater coordination.
2. Specific visual training. The visual system of a soccer player is different from that of a motorcycle racer and both respond differently to training programs, which is why they must be adapted according to specific needs. In this stage, many electronic devices and accessories are used depending on age, character, personal motivation, level of performance or environmental influences. For example, one of the exercises to practice ocular motility is to hang a ball with letters of different sizes on the ceiling and, with a pendulum movement, the athlete must read the letters without moving their position.
3. Integrated visual training. Visual skills are trained with psychological abilities (concentration, attention and activation), physical (speed, strength and strength) and tactics (interpretation of a play or a race and decision making). For example, again in the case of football, a player will do this training staring (for 5 seconds) at a spotlight lit in the field and, at the "ya" voice, a ball will be passed to him, which must quickly fire to the goal.
Visual training improves sports performance
Several clinical studies have revealed that visual training can increase the visual field up to 10º. The view is the sense that works the most in any sport and the training helps to react with greater speed before the different situations that arise. It is especially useful for the visualization of the ball in sports such as tennis, volleyball or soccer, to improve the ability to react and avoid possible accidents taking into account that the speed at which a Moto GP rider can reach 350 km / h.
In addition, with visual training we can gain in quality of life by maintaining and improving our visual skills, since good vision allows us to develop a large number of individual activities, such as working, driving and doing sports in an effective and comfortable way.
Marisol Nuevo Espín
Advice: Multiópticas
