Hawkeye
Vision
We have all seen them, players who anticipate space and movement opening up seemingly minutes before others and throw a perfectly timed and weighted pass. A key to this ability is an enhanced peripheral vision; to see further and wider than most. But this is just one of a raft of key optical attributes that needed to be assessed and honed to help produce more effective task execution in hockey.
Boltaski & Biberdorf (2016) evaluated whether visual, perceptual and cognitive/motor variables collected using the Nike SPARQ Sensory Training Station were associated with performance in NCAA Division 1 ice hockey players. Results demonstrated that 69% of variance in the goals made by forwards in 2011-2013 could be predicted by their faster reaction time to a visual stimulus, better visual memory, better visual discrimination and a faster ability to shift focus between near and far objects.
Visual stimuli processing acuity has a major influence on game-related task execution in ice hockey; transposing these findings even partially to field hockey should make coaching staff think and act. Ice hockey with its substantive base of well-funded applied physiological research is well advanced with assessment and prescriptive interventions for optimizing visual acuity in players. Facilities like that run by Dr Ryan Johnson on Idaho specialise in athlete vision performance and provide targeted vision training to improve visual skills that are identified as areas of weakness – barriers that prevent the player from reaching peak performance.
Here is a list of some of the vision skills required for hockey from “Visual Demands of Hockey.” 2016. November 29, 2016; I have added my views in italics. https://www.advancedvisiontherapycenter.com/about/blog/e_969/Sports-Vision/2016/11/Visual-Demands-of-Hockey.:
Boundaries: The visual boundaries of a sport refers to the visual area that an athlete must attend to while competing. In many cases the visual boundaries coincide with the boundaries of the playing surface.
Contrast / Figure-Ground: Contrast sensitivity, or the ability to distinguish between different shades of the same color is very important during competition e.g distinguishing playing strips, receiving the ball onto the stick surface.
Depth Perception: The ability to see in three dimension and judge distance of an object; this includes other players, the circle, the side and baselines and the goals..
Directional Localization: This skill is used when determining the direction and speed of a moving object. Hockey presents an extremely high demand on directional localization as the ball moves rapidly during the game. This is essential for judging the weight of a pass for both passer and receiver.
Duration: The visual demands of a sport can either be short duration or sustained. Hockey provides a short duration of very high visual demand during a shift on the turf, however playing 4 quarters places a sustained demand on the visual system. An athlete with poor visual endurance may perform better in the earlier periods of games as compared to the later periods.
Dynamic Visual Acuity: The ability to clearly track, or follow, moving objects and discern fine details of the moving object.
Figure-ground: The ability to identify an object of importance from background clutter, such as quickly locating the ball during play, particularly in compressed spaces like the circle.
Focus / Accommodation: The ability to quickly change focus between objects at different distances.
Gaze Angle / Fixation: This refers to the direction you must look during a given activity – maintaining visual gaze on a single location.
Peripheral Vision: Also referred to as side vision. This is what you see off to the side when looking straight ahead.
Visual Acuity: Clarity or sharpness of vision. Visual acuity is a measurement of vision against the established standard. IE: If you have 20/20 vision, you are considered to have “normal” vision - with the ability to see what has been established as standard at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/100 vision you must be at a viewing distance of 20 feet from an object to see what a person with normal vision can see at a distance of 100 feet.
Copyright Advanced Vision Therapy Center
In a landmark review of the literature, South African researchers Sneyimani et. al, (2023) published a comprehensive table of essential visual skills for field hockey, expanding somewhat on the ice hockey battery of skills.
Of particular interest to this author:
Accommodation Identifies object size (goal line, ball, and opponent), its significance, and pattern (mode of play) in relation to the performed tasks (strokes). This later increases the brain processing capacity resulting in greater cognitive abilities and reaction times of the perceived stimuli. Enables players to calculate the distance to be covered, ball interception, and game judgment.
Saccadic eye movements. Allows an athlete to scan the environment for any potential threats or areas that an athlete would like to exploit, such as defenders not being well organized during a penalty corner, which can result in them conceding a goal. Furthermore, eyes create visual attention which keeps them locked to the target.
Visual Memory. Athletes can study other teams’ mode of play, strengths and weaknesses, through pre-match videos. This later creates an expected outcome of the opponents’ tactics, and their movements can be intercepted easily. This skill in hockey is used to remember the pattern of play that teams have created in the training grounds so to succeed or dissecting a particular player because of the identified weakness. For example, finding the weakest link in the team, such that player will be used as an outlet. This is one attribute that receives a disproportionate amount of coaching & development attention; maybe as it is tech driven and more hands off and socially-based.
Anticipatory Action. Providing an athlete with the capacity of identifying opponents’ visual cues prior to the event, by means of utilizing body language, game atmosphere and verbal cues. This skill is heavily dependent upon the athlete’s ability to assess movement at short intervals. For example, if a defender imitates a fake shot, naturally attackers/ strikers would try to block the pseudo shot, in that way the faking player gets away with the ball.
Training your visual attributes
There are videos on YOUTUBE etc with some decent skill drills particularly for peripheral vision. (pv) If you are going to be be serious about improving visual capability you should start with a trip to an optometrist and be tested. At Voitto we have a saying for masters athletes “ health before performance” - your vision requires a health check.
We don’t really do commercial plugs for non-aligned professional service practitioners but if you are serious about incorporating improved vision in your own training or that of a team you ae coaching, I’d commend you to read the work of Dr. Sherylle Calder and look into a 3-4 month use of her brilliant eye-gym training system. If you are charged with the preparation of an elite squad, I’d absolutely include eyegym subscriptions during pre-season and refresh during the playing season.
As a STAC specialist, I devote a good deal of time to through neuromuscular activation prior to training and games; it may be high time to balance this with visual stimulation and drills to ensure a more effective performance.
References
Poltavski, Dmitri, and David Biberdorf. 2015. “The Role of Visual Perception Measures Used in Sports Vision Programmes in Predicting Actual Game Performance in Division I Collegiate Hockey Players.” Journal of Sports Sciences 33 (6): 597–608.
Sneyimani, Thabile, Musa Mathenjwa, Lourens Millard, and Gerrit Jan Breukelman. 2023. “A Review of the Essential Visual Skills Required for Field Hockey: Beyond 20-20 Optometry.” Asian Journal of Sports Medicine 14 (1). https://doi.org/10.5812/asjsm-126591.
“Visual Demands of Hockey.” 2016. November 29, 2016. https://www.advancedvisiontherapycenter.com/about/blog/e_969/Sports-Vision/2016/11/Visual-Demands-of-Hockey.
