Impact of Visual Skills Training on Sports Performance: Current and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Every sport requires a set of visual skills that are critical elements to most sports performance. A considerable debate has taken place concerning the role of vision in sports performance but it is the training of these specific skills that influence to strengthen specific visual abilities resulting in actually improved performance. This article highlights the current perspectives on the importance of visual training on visual skills enhancement leading to an improved performance in sports. It also gives further insights in the need of future longitudinal trials involving athletes from diverse sports as well as recommends visual skills training to be included in the routine training of the athletes at all levels.

Visual Abilities Distinguish Level of Play in Rugby

“…While Kishita et al (2020), and Yilmaz and Polat (2018) found that there was no difference in saccadic eye movements when comparing expert and novice tennis players, volleyball players, basketball players, and swimmers, respectively (13,14), the finding of superior saccadic eye movements in Premier League rugby players concurs with studies conducted by Jafarzadehpur et al (2007), and Gegenfurtner et al (2011) who found a significant difference in saccadic eye movements when comparing expert and novice volleyball players (15,16). Experts may have superior saccadic eye movements to novices due to saccadic eye movements having different underlying neural visual mechanisms, as well as different neural motor mechanisms that allow for improvement through large amounts of training (6). However, previous research has also found that experts do not have shorter latencies for the initiation of pursuit or saccadic eye movements as it is a visual hardware skill and cannot be improved through training (13,14).…”

“…However, Breed et al (2018) found no difference in speed of recognition when comparing experts and novices in Australian football players (19). The lack of changes in that study may have been due to expert athletes in those sports not using sport-specific tests since expert athletes may only have superior recall when it comes to task-specific experiences (6). The lack of superiority in those studies does also not imply that speed of recognition is not important in those sports since the need for efficiency of decision-making with regard to response execution and inhibition is clear in those sports (20).…”

“…While research pertaining to vision expertise in rugby players has indicated that rugby players have enhanced skills when compared to non-athletes (6,7), no research exists to determine if rugby players at different levels of play exhibit different levels of visual expertise, which necessitates a study in this vain. At present, it has been suggested that novices in sport may possesses similar visual skills to that of experts playing at a higher level (8).…”

Vision in Futsal Players: Coordination and Reaction Time

“…Furthermore, the development of visual skills may also benefit athletes in preventing injuries [30]. There is ample evidence that training of visual skills administered in a definitive approach and on an individual basis following particular guidelines can lead to an improved performance in various aspects of sports eventually leading to a top-level performance desired by most athletes [31].…”

SuperVision

“…Many games involve the inherent challenge of maintaining peripheral awareness of "the bigger picture" while focussing on one object or character at a time. Peripheral awareness is, for instance, an essential skill in many sports, and can be trained [26,58].…”