Sports Vision Enhancement Therapy
Sports vision enhancement therapy, or SVE, is a series of techniques and procedures that are used to train an individual's eyes to work together with the body for perfection and precision during on-field and off-field performances. Various sports athletes that range from golf, NBA, NFL, MLB and Hockey use SVE to reach their peeks during their performances. Wade Boggs and Troy Aikman are just a couple names.
Sports vision enhancement therapy helps you to improve your vision acuity and correct any sudden sports vision problems. Certain visual skills are addressed throughout therapy that range from peripheral vision to eye hand coordination. With the right therapist and the right program, you as an athlete can truly benefit and gain an edge over everyone else on the field.
What SVE Addresses
As mentioned, certain visual skills are addressed throughout the entire therapeutic process. Training usually happens under the supervision of a SVE therapist in their office, however if you're hooked up with the right SVE therapist, he or she might be willing to make site visits on your practice field. Here's what areas the enhancement program targets:
Visual Acuity - Coaches and players can not stress the importance of seeing clearly during the sport, and the importance of seeing clearly when an object or player is in motion, is obviously crucial. SVE focuses in on a player's visual acuity and their ability to pick up visual cues and use them to their advantage.
Peripheral Vision - Peripheral vision is basically seeing out of the corners of your eye's. This is actually a very important skill many athletes struggle with. Having good side vision can allow a player to know where teammates, opponents, and balls, pucks, etc. are at all times.
Depth Perception - Most athletes rely heavily on depth perception to quickly and accurately judge the distance and speed of the objects and persons on the field of play. Enhancing your depth perception can help you to react to the actions quicker and more precisely in those crucial moments.
Visual Tracking - Visual tracking is the ability to use your eye's to follow a moving object easily, smoothly and accurately. With the help of a therapist, you can train your eye's to do this more effectively.
Visual Reaction Time - Your visual reaction time is the time that's needed to see and react to visual information, such as a ball coming at your full speed and you reacting to it. This skill can be sharpened beyond your beliefs over a short period of time.
Visualization - Visualizing something in your mind while you are focusing on something else is visualization. Pretend you're on a soccer team and your teammate is dribbling the ball. While this is going on, you begin running toward the goal while picturing your teammate passing you the ball and you scoring, all while your teammate is still dribbling around opponents. Your body movements tend to tune into what it is your concentrating on, so picturing where you want the ball to go can be helpful in increasing the chances of the ball going where you want it to. Therapists stress the importance of recognizing that everyone can improve their game if they routinely visualize their goal in their minds while using their eyes to concentrate on the ball.
Eye Hand Coordination - This is the ability to effectively coordinate your eyes and hands during a game. Or in some cases, feet hand coordination can be fine tuned.
A great sports vision enhancement program can truly benefit you as a player on the field and as a normal person off the field. Most results can be achieved in a short period of time through dedication and practice. Depending on the sport you play, a SVE therapist can turn your ordinary game into an extraordinary game within months or even weeks while focusing on your particular needs. One on one time with the coach is crucial for some athletes to develop, but sometimes that one on one time is overlooked because of the needs of teammates. If you're interested in gaining an edge over everyone else, and crave one on one training that benefits you as an individual, SVE could be for you.
[Page updated 12/2010]
