In sports, having spot-on vision is critical to success. While a good physical condition is essential for athletes, having healthy eyes is equally important. In this blog post, we will discuss a few things that athletes can do outside of the doctor’s office to give their eyes a strength workout on par with leg day. These tips will help athletes improve their visual skills, such as peripheral vision, dynamic acuity, and hand-eye coordination.
Eye Yoga
Yoga is a fantastic practice for everyone, not just athletes. However, your eyes also need flexibility and mobility to react to situations quickly without getting tired. Eye yoga is the easiest way to give your eyes a stretch. This exercise involves changing your focus by concentrating your eyes on an object about arm’s length away and then shifting your focus to something far away for the same amount of time. This exercise can help improve your eye flexibility and mobility.
Catch the Edge
Next is your peripheral vision, which is your ability to spot things out of the corner of your eye. This exercise involves going for a walk outside and trying to pick out things that are on the edge of your vision without turning your head to look. You can also have a friend hold up some fingers on the edge of your vision and try to count them. Practicing this exercise on both sides of your head can help improve your peripheral vision.
Dynamic Acuity
Tracking objects sharply is important for nearly every sport. This exercise involves reading moving words. Have a friend pull up some text on their phone and try to read it as they move it around. This exercise can help improve your ability to track moving objects.
Go Deep with Depth Perception and Hand-Eye Coordination
This exercise involves practicing your depth perception by trying to do precise tasks at arm’s length with only one eye open. You can practice this exercise by threading a sewing needle or putting a screw into a hole. You can also try throwing and catching a ball with one eye open at a time. This exercise can help improve your hand-eye coordination and depth perception.
Visual Memory
Remembering what you saw is just as important as seeing on its own. This exercise involves playing a fast-paced memory or matching game to help you boost your visual memory. You can challenge yourself with every playthrough to beat your previous time. For bonus points, you can play the matching game using only your peripheral vision. This exercise can help improve your visual memory and peripheral vision.
Conclusion:
These at-home practice exercises will give athletes some basics to keep their minds and eyes sharp. However, athletes can also benefit from a series of services, tests, and sports vision therapies to up their game. At Optik Birmingham, we offer various services that can help athletes improve their visual skills and athletic performance. Give us a call today to learn more about how we can help you.
