Vision writes the spatial equations that the body must solve...

When it comes to performance…the “eyes” have it. How much visual training do you perform for your athletes?

In 1998, I was fortunate to meet with and review the training practices of Dr. Robert B. Sanet, O.D., and Carl Hillier, O.D, at their Lemon Grove (California) offices. Dr. Sanet knew of my training position and nonchalantly made the statement…”It doesn’t matter what you do first- Vision Writes the spatial equations that the body must solve”… That statement stays with me today- 11 years later.

In 1998 Greg Vaughn, a then-San Diego Padre was experiencing a slump. The goal of visual training is the ability to see more information per unit time. Hilliards goal with Vaughn was to make him more visually aware of events that are occurring around him. As a hitter, or fielder of a ball, if you can be in constant contact with ball visually, there’s more information available to you to make a physical response. While its physiologically impossible to track a ball coming at 100MPH, you can be visually aware of the ball throughout the duration of the pitch path.

Vaughns program involved working with strobe lights flickering around him, working with computer models that trained his eyes to identify the locations of quickly moving light targets, and more. He was trained him to be keenly aware of every temporal event that occurs around him, without missing any information that occurs along the way. The program worked. That year, Vaughn hit 50 home runs and had a .298 batting average. His best ever performance.

Dominant eye tests are one of the initial introductions I make with athletes in professional baseball. If needed- we add colored numbers on tennis balls as a hitters drill, and I maintain access to a product called Acuvision- a frame based visual field that offers random LED lights that objectively measure hand- eye deficits through training programs.

Sometimes the weights and the medicine balls aren’t enough. Make sure you think about vision in all aspects of athlete development. It truly starts with the eyes.