SPORTS VISION TRAINING FOR THE PROFESSIONAL TEAM PART 4

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What we're going to suggest for Professional, College and even Olympic teams is a little different than what the current landscape of Sports Vision Training allows. In order to understand where we think the market will head, you really need to understand what the market is currently doing and look at the history of training as a whole. The current condition of the market has professional and elite organizations scraping together different programs to help their players succeed visually. Most programs work (to a certain extent), but there is a better way to do it. Often times they'll refer their players to an Optometrists who just wants the story of checking a Professional's eyes, maybe take a picture, get an autograph, etc.

 I remember talking with a doc in the industry who was the team eye doc for a team in the NHL. I asked him about how he got to become the referring Optometrist for the team and he relayed this story: He met a player out of a referral from a friend and he came in asking why he was doing so poorly on the ice. During the exam the doctor realized that he needed contacts and the player was blown away! He'd been checked by another O.D. who the team referred him to and he said his vision was fine. Turns out the other doctor was doing it for free and just wanted to meet some professional athletes. The exam wasn't thorough, but just your typical run-of-the-mill exam; "can you see this? Yes.  You're seeing fine, have a nice day." The player was so appreciative that he told 2 other teammates who were also struggling and happened to need the same thing! Eventually the doctor was able to speak with the guy in charge at the organization and said "Look, I don't know who your sending them to, but so far the guy's 0-3 and keeps missing on these assets of yours." He eventually was designated as the teams eye doctor and has opened doors for other organizations to go to him.

In order to do Sports Vision right, the team or organization needs to hire someone full time to work with these athletes. We look at this industry as what people's perceptions were of lifting weights years ago. Everyone was told that lifting weights would throw off your mechanics and mess with your swing, throwing motion, etc. It wasn't until these athletes were succeeding at the highest level while lifting weights before teams succumbed to hiring strength and conditioning coaches. Look at the landscape now! Every team, college and organization has strength and conditioning coaches. If the proper program for lifting weights merits a whole unit, then why not something as important as your asset's vision? These athletes are your organizations assets and they need the best to succeed.

An eye doctor who is worth his salt is not going to leave his current practice for less than what his practice is worth. Avoiding any debate on the economics of Optometry, you don't want to hire someone who's been working at Wal-Mart either, checking eyes for the last couple of years for the retail giant is where O.D.s go to die. You want an innovative person who understands the game that you are playing. Someone that can deal with the psyche of an athlete, read through and apply sabermetrics to their training. Someone who isn't as expensive as a doctor is going to be, but more expensive than some personal trainer fresh out of college. I don't personally know of any team or organization that has this yet, but rest assured they're coming. It will only take 1 team to hire someone and word to get out before they start budgeting for this in their payroll. Consultants are great, but my experience has been that consultants benefit more than the organization does.

SPORTS VISION DONE RIGHT PART 3 (TRAINING FACILITY)

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There are 2 schools of thought in dealing with athletic training facilities when it comes to Sports Vision training; Individual training or blanket training. When dealing with an athletic training facility, you have to keep in mind that they make their money on training teams and individuals. Since the body is different than the brain, it needs constant training so these facilities have a built in clientele and market segment that keep coming back (so long as they are playing sports). Some go with the gym mentality of lets charge a small amount for a large organization but only expect 5% to actually take advantage of the training offered.

In what we call the "blanket training" method, a facility puts everyone in a group and does 1 maybe 2 sports vision drills. They do this to look like they are innovative, but in reality they are wasting the good majority of the athletes' time. That's not to say it doesn't work, because it does, but if you facility is doing this they are just trying to keep up with the competition without investing serious time into doing it right. In reality they're putting very little effort into actual sports vision training. It's the cheap way of doing vision training.

The other way these facilities implement Sports Vision training is through and individualized program. In a perfect world, the facility would hire someone just to train their athletes in Sports Vision, but most of these facilities are operating on a shoe string budget to begin with so what our facilities do is get their athletes to do a Sports Vision Assessment. When the athlete has an assessment they are in charge of keeping a folder with the assessment and bringing it to the facility. The company then separates 10-15 minutes at the beginning or end of the class (preferably the beginning) to dedicate specifically to Vision Training. With the assessment the facility knows what the athletes' strengths and weaknesses are. Drills are then given to each athlete to work on during their allotted time. This helps the athlete progress visually, but takes a little longer in terms of maxing out physiologically (6-9 months on average). Like I stated earlier, ideally the facility has someone that can train on an individual basis, but if not this second method of training is the next best thing.

SPORTS VISION TRAINING DONE RIGHT PART 2 (DOCTOR)

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This is my background so I'm going to give you a lot of information regarding Sports Vision Training for a doctors office. This is where the general public comes and instantly trusts the training they receive simply because of the initials after the name. I've met and seen plenty of docs that don't have the slightest clue about what to do with this type of business. This type of business isn't the thing that you can just add to the services you offer and call it a day. To do Sports Vision the right way, you really have to have someone dedicated to training, managing, etc. It's not an easy thing to get going and when you finally have enough clientele you still have to pay out trainers, staff, contractors, etc. and hope there's something left at the end for you to take home. A typical session with a trainer is anywhere from $75-125 for an hour long session. Now if the doctor is hands on with the athlete and the one actually doing the training, you can expect to pay over the $125 price range I'm giving.

 Typically a doctor gives a Sports Vision eye exam and then does an assessment on top of the exam. Now if you call and ask for a Sports Vision eye exam and the person on the other line has no idea what you are talking about, just hang up and find someone that does. You'll be able to avoid a lot of headache and disappointment if you filter out who knows what a Sports Vision exam is based on that one question. After the exam, you should do an assessment on your visual performance. The assessment doesn't have to be the same day, but you should make sure you get the exam and the assessment before you really start training. There are some great tools that can give the assessment within 20-30 min, but if your doctor doesn't have them, the assessment can take up to 2 hours to complete. After you have the assessment you are free to begin training.

The doctor shouldn't do too much hands-on training with the athletes, a lot of docs have a hard time letting go of this portion of the business, but to do it the right way, they have to be willing to hand the reigns to their staff.  (If you are not an Optometrist, the rest of the paragraph can just be skipped, because I'm going to be talking directly to them) What you as the doctor need to understand is that you are best used as the science and brains behind the training. That's what you went to school for and that's where your training will succeed above all else. Research is what your staff needs to survive and stay ahead of the current market place. My doctor reads a ton of neuro-books and feeds us (his staff) the most recent revelations regarding neuro, sensory, or sports vision training. I can't emphasize this enough! I could write a whole other post on his topic alone, but I'll save that for another time.

We practice an ATA method. No that isn't some scientific term, we use it for our own marketing and branding; it stands for Assess, Train, Adjust. Then we repeat the steps over and over until the athlete maxes out physiologically to where they can't see or react any faster than what they've already trained to. We are training the brain and body to process quicker and reach maximum efficiency. I would say, on average, when an athlete is committed and coming to us weekly, we do a Sports Vision Assessment 4-5 times during the training before they reach their max. We also assess between 7-10 training sessions so you can do the math on how much of an investment will be needed to reach your athlete's potential. This will typically be the most costly, but you know you're getting the best type of training directly from a doctor. There are some facilities that do exactly the same thing as a doctor, but we'll go into those details over the coming days.

SPORTS VISION DONE THE RIGHT WAY PART 1 (INDIVIDUAL)

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I'm going to write a handful of posts on the best way to implement sports vision based on different circumstances for an athlete. I'll break them down on a personal level, doctor level, training facility level and professional or elite level. This particular post is for those individuals looking to do sports vision on their own without the help of professionals in the field. They research and figure a penny saved (in training) is a penny earned. These types of athletes are the truly educated and self disciplined athlete that doesn't need someone yelling in their ear to get better. We had a college baseball player in recently that fit this mold perfectly. He had even built his own version of sports vision training drills that he was doing at his house (a little extreme, but I appreciated the effort).

The impetus for most people practicing this version of sports vision training is cost. On a personal note, I would have probably fallen into this category when I was younger simply because money was tight. The funny thing about doing this on your own is that no matter how hard you try you're still going to have to pay for product, software, doctor's visits, etc. Just off the top of my head, I would estimate at spending $500-1000 for the first year of getting started doing vision training on your own and then another $150-250/year for each subsequent year depending on how often you go in for a sports vision eye exam.

The cons to this particular type of training is having a baseline and measuring the results throughout the training. We practice an ATA method (Assess, Train, Adjust), where we are constantly evaluating, measuring, training, adjusting, assessing, etc. It's a constant fluid type of training. So it is true; someone, if discipline enough (key factor), can practice sports vision training on their own but they have to spend hours upon hours of researching sensory training and sports vision training, while still shelling out some money for equipment and software needed. Another factor to take into consideration is the fact that this information is not going to be easy to come by. Just Google sports vision training and try to find someone freely giving their trade secrets away, not gonna happen. My opinion, only fall into this category if money is an issue.