Vision Drills for Better Performance in Physical Movement
Everything you have ever experienced will be experienced, all exercises or personal bests that you have ever performed have started and ended in your brain.
All the movements, skills, thoughts and everything that makes you special are contained in this 3 pound organ,
- How does your brain know what to do at a certain time?
- How does your brain collect information?
- And how does it decide what to do with the information collected?
- More importantly, how does your brain collect information and what does it do to your training, performance, or recovery?
You bet your ass does!
This is not a neurological lecture, but before we look at the importance of how your brain collects information and how it can be improved, we need to understand in a very basic way how the brain works.
Brain Basics
Your brain uses sensory inputs to collect information, These sensors receive input, and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central nervous system (CNS) send these signals to the brain, which then essentially decides on the action and then generates a motor output that is relevant to the decision.
At a very simple level, it is.
The brain has three ways to collect information or input:
- Exteroception: surveillance of the outside world
- Intercept: body awareness and feelings
- Proprioception: awareness of the body and limbs in the room
These inputs are then integrated together to create and update the map of the brain of everything. Of you, the world around you and how you move through it. The brain updates past experiences, senses, and prediction processes to make decisions that dictate the body's actions.
Now that we've largely understood how the brain does things, we need to find out why it does them.
The answer is simple: survival.
The goal of your brain is to keep you alive, Point. Do not keep alive in ten years, but today.
How it does it is through prediction. Our brain masters pattern recognition. Every second of every day, the 120 billion neurons in the brain process information based on past experiences to predict the results of actions. This is your brain that uses pattern recognition to decide actions.
The inputs your brain uses to move around the world have a hierarchy:
- Visually
- vestibular
- proprioceptive
If these sensory inputs match (i.e. there is clear information from all three systems and good integration into the brain), you can work well with your brain and perform when it matters. No matter whether CrossFit, Powerlifting or just lifting something off the floor.
If there is a mismatch, we run into problems, If there is bad information that informs the brain maps and pattern recognition skills, I fear that they will try to limit the likelihood of death – usually by creating pain to attract attention or inhibit movement.
In this article, I will focus on exercises to improve your visual system, as 70-90% of all sensory inputs are visual.
The role of seeing
There are two classifications of human vision::
- Looking stabilization: A fundamental element of all other eye movements and enables us to see objects and interpret the visual scene to create perception.
- Shift view: This allows us to focus on a moving target. Think the ball is racing towards your face on the field.
There can be any number of things that affect these two patterns and interfere with your visual system, which in turn can dramatically affect your performance without you even knowing it.
The key to training your visual system for performance is training your eye muscles to function properly. Finally, poor muscle function leads to problems with gaze shifting and gaze stabilization.
We'll cover one drill for stabilization and one for shifting. In my video you will find a demonstration of the individual exercises.
I recommend that you record the practice and watch it again to see how you do it, This way you can adjust accordingly.
Drill 1: eye stabilization
- Put yourself in a neutral position.
- Hold a target (pen) at arm's length directly in front of you. Stare at the target for 30 seconds.
- You need to focus on the goal because an inability to stabilize your eyes usually means very small, quick movements of your eyes away from the goal and then back to the goal.
- When looking back, try to notice excessive facial tension, eyelid flutter, excessive blinking, or tears in the eyes while trying to focus on the target.
- Once you've done this assessment in a neutral position, do the same test in each of the other four positions. Above, right, left and below.
- Pay special attention, as it is very likely that you will find one or more positions in which to struggle with your eye stabilization.
- It is important that the goal remains in focus at all times. If it becomes blurred, reduce the distance to the neutral conductor, keep it pressed.
- Do this exercise three times through each position.
Exercise 2: shifting eyes
Stand in a neutral position and hold a pen in front of you in a neutral position.
Try to smoothly follow the pen as you move it from the neutral position to one of the following eight positions and then back to the neutral position:
- Above
- Low
- Right
- Left
- High and right
- Above and left
- Down and to the right
- Below and left
You should repeat this test three times at each of the eight positions, You will look for two things when you look at the drillback:
- Excessive swaying of the body.
- Poorly coordinated eye movement. This is usually seen as some kind of ratcheting or jumping movement that prevents them from following the target smoothly.
Each of these can indicate poor visual motor control.
Make your vision clear
The goal of these exercises is to make your eyes work properly so that the information your brain receives is as clear as possible, This way, your brain is not afraid of being able to move fully in all available ranges of motion.
Remember, if the brain can predict, you can perform.
references::
1. Gaymard, B. & Pierrot-Deseilligny, C. (1999). Saccade neurology and smooth tracking. Current opinion in neurology.
2. Hughes, A.E. (2018). Dissociation between perception and smooth tracking of eye movements when assessing the speed of moving Gabor targets. Journal of Vision.
3. Ingster-Moati, I., Vaivre-Douret, L., Bui Quoc, E., Albuisson, E., Dufier, J.L. & Golse, B. (2009). Vertical and horizontal eye movements in children: a neurological development study. European Journal of Pediatric Neurology.
4. Krauzlis, R.J., Goffart, L. & Hafed, Z.M. (2017). Neural control of fixation and fixative eye movements. Royal Society B Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences.
