VISION TRAINING Dr. Jeff Konin, The Rehab Doc
Ice hockey is an exciting sport that requires skill, agility, strength, speed,
and so many other attributes to be successful. One area that may be
taken for granted is vision – the ability to see! If you are a goalie, it goes
without saying how important it is to see the puck.
Yet ask yourself, during any of your on or off-ice training sessions, do you
do any drills to improve your vision? If you had flawless technique but poor
vision, cut you perform well in net? Of course not, as being able to track
the puck is critically important to playing the position. Similarly, for all
other skaters, having good peripheral vision allows you to better prepare for
receiving passes, avoiding potential checks, and overall general awareness
of your surroundings on the ice.
The human eye contains muscles in it just like the rest of our body.
Research shows that we have the potential to train these muscles to
improve how they track objects. In fact, this is a common technique used
by rehabilitation specialists with players who have sustained a concussion
and are dealing with post-concussion visual challenges.
However, in this case, there is no need to wait for an injury to occur
before training the muscles of the eye. There are exercises that can be
implemented that range from using simple props to those that require
highly sophisticated equipment.
As an athlete, change of direction with eye movements are required to
occur at higher speeds than the average person would need. The puck
moves fast, the game is fast-paced. Visual change of direction occurs at
an extremely rapid pace – but is necessary.
The difference for a goalie to be able to gain even the slightest amount of
eye movement speed could be the difference between stopping a puck or
allowing a goal.
For a skater, seeing an opponent coming toward you sooner versus later
could mean avoiding being checked while unprepared to brace yourself
properly to take the hit. Hopefully you are convinced that good vision is
imperative to ice hockey success regardless of position, and that there is
no better time than now to begin a vision training program. One of the first
things you can do is determine which one of your eyes is more dominant.
To begin, form a small triangle with the thumbs and index fingers on one
hand. Keep both eyes open
With both eyes open start with your arms stretched
out and identify a wall object in the triangle that you
created with your thumb and index finger. The object
can be a light switch or small picture frame. Next,
move the triangle closer to your eyes keeping the
object in the center. Once within 6 inches from your
face, close one of your eyes.
If the object stays in your sight, then the open eye is the dominant eye. If
the object moves away from the center or out of view completely, then the
closed eye is your dominant eye. Eye dominance can be helpful to know as
it gives you an understanding of which side of your body may have better
overall peripheral vision.
Here are a few exercises that can be used anywhere and take only a few
minutes each day.
1. Alternate Focus Drill
This is an exercise that helps you focus on an object especially at faster
speeds. You can position yourself in your typical stance for your position,
and alternating reading words (or numbers) from two charts on a wall. Do
this in order, reading the first word on the left chart, then the first word on
the right chart. Then repeat the process with the second word, third word,
etc… Read each word out loud.
Do this as fast as you can, trying to regain focus from left to right on
each word. You can time yourself to see how long it takes to complete the
reading of the charts as well as keep track of how many errors you make.
The goal would be to improve your speed with less errors. If you become
accustomed to the chart, you can create new charts with different words.
2. Hand/Eye Speed Drill
This is a simple drill designed to improve your handeye
coordination. For example, seeing a puck sooner
and clearer is helpful. Having the ability to react
with your stick quickly is even better! I have seen
many goalies learn this drill and perform as a pregame
warm-up.
All you need is a rubber ball and a wall. Keeping a
“ready” stance, bounce the ball off the wall and catch it with one of your
hands. This can be done repeatedly for 10-15 seconds at a time, performing
a couple of sets. There are many ways to make this drill more challenging:
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College and professional ice hockey players may have access to fancy
virtual reality type programs that serve to improve one’s vision. These
are not only activities that enhance eye muscles, but they are also fun to
do! Baseball players have caught on recently to the importance of vision
training for the purposes of being a better hitter. And now, cadets at the
United State Air Force Academy are regularly performing drills to improve
their hand-eye coordination.
There are many more examples of drills that can
be performed to improve the tasks needed for
good vision as an ice hockey player. Treat your eye
muscles equally as important as your leg muscles
and you will likely perform better!
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