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Background: Vision is one of the most important qualities required of athletes. It provides players with an ability to perform sport-related drills, as well as applying decision-making skills. In order to accurately measure the visual ability of athletes, it is important to first identify the variety of visual skills involved in the sport, in this case rugby. Objectives: The objectives of the review novelty are to identify the most important visual skills for rugby. To create a referencing point for future studies to be able to add additional visual skills essential to rugby players. Methods: An electronic search was conducted to assess the scientific literature relating to the visual skills required for rugby. Only peer-reviewed articles written in English were included in the search. Data on the relationship with match performance, the problem definition or purpose of the study, and the inclusion of a theoretical definition of tactical behavior were extracted. Discussion: The most important visual skills in rugby are: Visual acuity, Eye tracking, Eye focusing, Depth perception, Hand-eye coordination, Fixation, Fusion flexibility, Visual adjustability and Colour flexibility. Rugby players must pay attention to their teammates' positions, understand the opponent's actions and tactics, handle the ball, analyze the current situation, and predict what will happen.

The present study aimed to compare the visual expertise of non-athletes (n ¼ 40; 19-35 years old; age: 22.13 AE 2.37 years) to amateur, non-professional South-African Rugby Union (SARU) first-division club rugby players (n ¼ 40; 19-35 years old; age: 23.88 AE 4.36 years; training age mean: 9.0 AE 1.5 years). Research suggests that athletes have enhanced visio-spatial expertise in comparison to non-athletes. However, conflicting research suggests that this is not always the case as non-athletes possess similar visio-spatial expertise in certain visual skills. Participants underwent an optometric assessment after which the following 6 visio-spatial intelligence (VSI) components were measured; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory and hand-eye coordination using the following tests; hart near far rock, saccadic eye movement, evasion, accumulator, flash memory and ball wall toss tests. Results indicated that first-division rugby players performed significantly better (p 0.05) in five of the six tests performed, except for visual memory (p ¼ 0.893). While this study substantiates the notion that athletes, in this case first-division rugby players, performs significantly better in most VSI components, this is not the case for all, as with visual memory in this study. To more accurately distinguish between athletes and non-athletes, research should move away from tests that focus on basic visual function and develop sport specific testing methods that can be used by a variety of sports.

: Sport has become increasingly competitive, prompting the need to determine, as far as possible, any likely performance advantage. While the focus of athletic research, testing, and training is on the physiological and physical characteristics of the sport, visual abilities not only affect sport performance directly, but also affect the acquisition of motor skills. Vision, and visual-spatial intelligence (VSI), are a relatively new and underexplored area of athletic performance. As with physiological and physical parameters, a range of factors affect vision and VSI in sporting activities. This review of the literature is a first attempt to summarize and compile an overview of the factors affecting vision and VSI in athletes, covering those previously connected with sport, as well as those hitherto not associated with athletic activities, but that could also play a part in sports performance. The evidence from this review suggests that while current research still tends to focus on single factors affecting vision and VSI, a large number of such factors have been identified that could affect vision and VSI. This offers new opportunities for researchers to investigate the effects of a combination of factors, and for conditioning and/or sports vision specialists to explore further possibilities for competitive advantage.

Background: With atherosclerosis first being demonstrated to be as a result of diet in 1909, epidemiological studies have examined the role of diet on cardiovascular disease (CVD). This has led to diet's inclusion as a secondary CVD risk factor not only for its direct association with CVD, but also due to its important role to play in other risk factors, such as dyslipidemia and diabetes mellitus. The low carbohydrate, high fat diet (LCHFD) is a contentious topic. Its efficacy is much-debated, with opponents proposing that LCHFDs increase the risk of developing CVD. Objectives: This study's aim was to determine if a LCHFD alters lipoprotein-lipids, either unaccompanied or in combination with physical activity in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Participants (N = 39) were allocated to either 16 weeks of simultaneous physical activity and LCHFD (DiExG), LCHFD only (DietG) or 16 weeks of blind control (ConG). Participants in the DiExG were required to eat a high fat diet and not more than 50 g of carbohydrates per day in addition to walking a minimum of 10,000 steps daily. The DietG too followed a LCHFD but were not prescribed any physical activity while the ConG continued with their normal daily activities. Data were analyzed by SPSS 25 software using a paired sample t-test and ANOVA. A confidence level of P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: No significant (P > 0.05) changes were observed in blood total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) in either the DiExG

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In ball sports such as soccer, the visual system is critical in guiding a player's search for crucial information that underpins skillful behavior, which requires the incorporation of all of the relevant information in the environment in order to make successful decisions under pressure. However, vision in sport, and focusing on the specific visual skills required to be successful in a particular sport has largely been a practice ignored by experts and coaches as being an essential component of athletic performance. This is the first attempt to summarize and compile the necessary visual skills for soccer. This review's evidence suggests that, while current research still tends to focus on visual skills as a whole, there is a need to streamline this focus to the necessities of a particular sport. Furthermore, in identifying the visual skills essential for soccer, it allows for the effective training and testing of these skills, as well as for talent identification.

Background. Novices in sport possesses similar visual skills to that of experts, however there may be major differences in magnitude of performance in these skills, with expert athletes only demonstrating superiority in specific vision skills and not all aspects of vision. Objectives. In this vain, the aim of this study was to discern whether Premier League rugby players has enhanced visio-spatial skills in comparison to First Division rugby players. Methods. Thus, the present study compared the performance of Premier League rugby players (n = 40) and First Division rugby players (n = 40) on six specific components of vision, namely; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory, and hand-eye coordination. Results. Premier League rugby players performed significantly (p = 0.001) better than the First Division rugby players in five of the six tests. but were found to be similar in visual memory performance (p = 0.810). Conclusion. While this study substantiates the proposal that expert athletes, and specifically rugby players, have superior visual expertise to novice athletes, this study also found that this is not the case with all vision skills. The present study's findings suggest that sport-specific vision testing batteries may be required to distinguish high performers from low performers in the same vein as physical tests are utilised in the selection and recruitment of athletes.