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The aim of the Spectacle World Sports Vision Division is to uplift and improve the sporting skills and abilities of our sportsmen. Sport is able to bridge differences and enhance a sense of community.
To this end, Spectacle World’s contribution to local sport is to ensure that every player is visually equipped for the task at hand, which will contribute to improved skills and abilities on the field.
Spectacle World is a complete eye care facility which has been caring for the needs of the community for almost 15 years.
We have made our mark by establishing the real needs of our clients, offering personalized, enthusiastic service and supplying a superior product that has exceeded their expectations.
Our community service has included, but not limited to, assisting
- The South African Youth Choir (Fidentia)
- The Athlone school for the blind
- The Elsie’s River Care Centre
- An international championships paddleskier
- A Special Olympics table tennis player
- The Ryan Maron cricket school
Roughly 20% of all workers have uncorrected poor vision. In an effort to assist employees who often do not have access to eye care or are afraid that admitting to poor vision will jeopardize their job, Safepro Sight and Safety was established.
This was a Spectacle World and Safepro joint initiative, in which we have Occupational Health and Safety consultants who, among other things, also screen employees to find those with poor eyesight and assist them in getting the necessary eyewear. This is integral to ensuring safety at work as well as quality of product and as a benefit, boosts morale.
We also provide eye care for the Ajax soccer teams and are delighted to be able to welcome the Western Province Cricket Association and the Cobras cricket teams to our fold.
Healthy vision is vital for a productive and efficient workplace, yet employers and employees often take it for granted. Why do I mention this? Because sport is a business. And for a business it is vital that employers recognize the link between healthy vision and improved performance. Vision disorders are borne by both the employee and the employer, to the detriment of both.
At Spectacle World, we don’t sell eye wear, we sell enhanced performance.
Sports Vision is a branch of optometry concerned with vision and perception, evaluating and enhancing visual performance and prescribing, where necessary, the most appropriate visual aids.
Sports vision therapy can enhance eyesight and maximize performance. It will protect vision and help one connect with the ball. Sports Vision optometrists should routinely be consulted when superior athletic performance is the goal.
The aim of Spectacle World Sports Vision Division is to uplift and improve the sporting skills and abilities of our sportsmen. Sport is able to bridge differences and enhance a sense of community.
To this end, Spectacle World’s contribution to local sport is to ensure that every player is visually equipped for the task at hand, which will contribute to improved skills and abilities on the field. Spectacle World will therefore provide complimentary comprehensive visual eye examinations to evaluate sight and the screening of eye pathology for all players.
Thereafter, sport vision training and visual correction, visual enhancement and eye protection, all visual abilities crucial to athletic performance, is available, as is UV protective eyewear.
Everyone is constantly on the lookout for ‘the edge’ in sport and since vision is extremely important, optometrists who are sports vision practitioners can help provide that edge, particularly as research has shown that as many as 30% of sports men and women do not have a satisfactory vision correction or visual acuity.
Data from the 1992 Olympics revealed:
- Only half of the competitors had ever had their eyes tested,
- Yet one in four admitted to visual difficulties
Sports vision is about much more than the standard eye test, as with sports vision the entire visual system comes into play.
The visual system can for simplicity, be divided into three parts:
- Sensory (input)
- Mental processing or visual concentration
- Motor (output)
All three must be highly in tune for good sporting performance, if not there can be a knock-on effect whereby one failing leads to another. Only too often it is visual concentration that lets down performance. To work on this aspect of Sports Vision, equipment is yoked together to add complexity and therefore enhance concentration. Foe example an athlete can use the saccadic fixator to train eye movements while also keeping a balancing board still, being distracted by strobe lighting and answering questions!
Anatomically there are two main neuron-visual systems, with separate functions, and parallel processing of both is needed for optimal sporting performance. The mango (large) cell pathway is concerned with peripheral vision, reaction times, co-ordination with other senses and concentration, while the parvo (small0 cell pathway is concerned with clarity of vision, dynamic vision, spatial location and eye tracking.
In sports like golf, cricket, skiing and sailing, where there is a genuine UV or blue light hazard due to long hours spent in sunlight, photo-protective eyewear is advisable. Without protection, the hazard can contribute to a variety of ocular conditions such as cataract, pterygium (overgrowth of the cornea) and macular degeneration.
The importance of Vision in Sports
Have you ever closed one eye and then tried to catch a ball that has been thrown at you?... If you have, you probably found that catching the ball is easier when you use both eyes (assuming that your two eyes work well together, as a team). Now try catch a ball with both eyes closed. Usually trying to catch a ball under these conditions is an impossible task.
In most sport (probably all sport), vision is the dominant sense. One would usually think that seeing clearly is all that is needed to make vision dominant.
However, the vision skills that are needed to perform optimally at sport are much more involved than only being able to see clearly. For example, going back to catching a ball. This is an extremely complicated action. Your eyes, and only your eyes, tell you where the ball is in space. Making use of visual information only, you have to judge the speed of the ball and its flight path, you then have to make some kind of projection or estimation of where the ball is going to be when it gets within catching distance of your hands. This all has to happen within a matter of milliseconds. You then have to get your hands to where the ball is estimated to be in space and get them around the ball so that the ball stays there. Hopefully, your estimation of where the ball is in space is accurate so that your projection of the ball's position is in reality the ball's position, otherwise, your hands and the ball do not meet.
Of course this is when you are standing still. Catching a ball when moving adds considerably to the complexity of the action.
Catching a ball is just one of many actions occurring in sport. Your eyes give you the information you need to perform those actions.
There are many varied visual skills which play a role in sport. Most times, each sport has unique vision skills requirements. Knowing which skills are important for which sport, how to evaluate those skills and prescribe therapy to improve those skills is all within the scope of optometrists who have taken the time and effort to understand sports vision skills requirements and how to train those skills.
Symptoms Of Athletes With Possible Visual Problems
- Inconsistent performance from game to game
- Does not perform well under pressure
- Performs better when still than when moving or out of balance
- Performance does not appreciably improve after extensive practice
- "Timing" seems off
- Good natural ability but not performing up to potential
- Ball not always seen clearly
- Difficulty knowing where the ball or other players are at all times
- Difficulty judging rotation or spin on ball
- Over or under-estimating the distance of ball, players or boundaries
- Difficulty making a specific shot or play
- Difficulty remembering plays
- Making similar mistakes over and over again
The Spectacle World Sports Vision Division aims to significantly improve:
- Visual Acuity ; the ability to see clearly
- Dynamic Visual Acuity ; the ability to see something moving
- Eye movement skills ; the ability to follow a moving target
- Eye/hand/foot co-ordination ; the ability for your body to quickly react to what you see
- Accommodation; the ability to change your focus from far to near
- Peripheral awareness; the ability to recognize and react to targets not directly in front of you
- Visual reaction time; the need to make very quick visual decisions
- Depth perception; the ability to use depth for motor judgements and localise objects accurately in space
- Visual Balance; the ability to keep the body in balance and have the efficiency to control balance with movement
- Visualisation; the ability to rehearse performance and plays in your ‘mind’s eye’
Common Symptoms of a Visual Performance Problem
Poor spatial judgment |
Poor concentration |
Visual Skills vital to sports competition
Visual acuity (sharp eyesight) |
Speed and span of recognition |
To this end, we offer the following services:
- Comprehensive complimentary sports vision evaluation
- Sports vision enhancement training to allow for optimal sports performance
- Specialised contact lenses to improve clarity, performance and peripheral vision
