Patching

I was recently listening to a cricket podcast. The expert panel was asked about the benefits of vision training, especially for late developers. The experts agreed that generalised vision training was of little use, except possibly as a psychological boost. Vision training that was done in the context of the sport, however, might be helpful. Needless to say, those views echo my own precisely.

One coach said that it could be useful to patch one eye when practising bowling, batting or fielding. He has got his batsmen on occasion to wear a patch over what he called the “motor eye”, which is the eye that leads when we are tracking a moving object. The idea was that this would “strengthen” the other eye. I think he was on stronger ground when he suggested that because this was putting his batsmen in a challenging position, so it would help them deal with other difficult situations that they might encounter in a match, which is why his players found it both challenging and useful. I’m certainly all for making practice highly demanding, so that you are mentally and physically prepared for the challenged that will come your way on match day.

                  

I was reminded of an experiment on eye dominance and tennis that I’ve discussed before. It was found that blurring the non-dominant eye of elite tennis players had a deleterious effect on performance, whereas fogging the dominant eye did not. This rather paradoxical finding was explained by suggesting that the non-dominant eye was essential for depth perception. Whilst this may well be true, I’m no longer sure that it explains the findings as the dominant eye must also be essential for really accurate depth perception.

                  

I therefore suspect that what happened in these tennis players was the same as happened to the cricketers: when the dominant eye was blurred, it felt really strange, so the players had to concentrate harder on the ball. In doing so, they were able to perceive monocular cues such as image size, which meant that their depth perception wasn’t actually too badly affected. When the non-dominant eye was blurred, however, because the effect on vision was less noticeable, they made little or no adjustment for it.

                  

So, patching the dominant eye can be a useful exercise, but it probably needs to be used sparingly. It’s likely to result in adjustments to the body, such as a head tilt. If a player doesn’t have really strong eye dominance, they could start switching during competition, and if they don’t make the necessary compensatory adjustments their timing and other judgements could be all wrong.

                  

I’m not sure how this relates to late developers, but I suspect it depends on why they are developing late. It could help with getting them to concentrate on the ball as it leaves the bowler’s hand, or help them get into line better. But if they are late developers because they haven’t played much cricket, you would probably be better leaving them to work this out for themselves. If the idea is to make the practice more challenging, there are other ways of doing this, such as using smaller balls and/or bats, or getting them to read markings on the ball as it approaches.

                  

Patching can be useful in a number of sports. In golf, for instance, it could be used to ensure that the player maintains eye dominance when switching from the ball to the target. In rugby, you might notice that some players are not paying enough attention to the passer’s hands as he passes the ball. This means that they are late in reacting to the ball as it appears in front of them and therefore drop it. One solution would be to patch the left eye for passes coming from their left, and the right eye for passes coming from their right. This would then require them to turn their head towards the passer so they pick up the flight of the ball at the earliest stage. I would probably still be inclined to achieve a similar effect by using smaller balls, balls of a dull colour that are harder to see, or balls with numbers or letters on that the players have to read out before they catch them.

                  
Patching both eyes, otherwise known as blindfolding, certainly has a place for enhancing kinaesthetic feedback. But that’s for another day.

David Donner

Retinal imaging able to detect Alzheimer’s

Retinal imaging able to detect Alzheimer’s

The Chimp Paradox

I’ve talked a lot about the conscious and subconscious parts of the brain, but there’s another part known as the limbic system. I tend to think of this as an alarm system: all sensory information goes to this part of the brain first and is scanned for potential dangers.

This system was great when our ancestors were living in the jungle and could be eaten by a predator at any moment, but can cause problems in our modern lives. So an opening batsman preparing to face a fast bowler will have made a conscious decision to play cricket that day. The precise movements required to play a shot at the right time to hit the ball successfully depends on the subconscious brain. But as the batsman watches the fast bowler marking their run-up, the limbic system may well be sending out alarm messages, such as “He looks big; the ball’s likely to be coming at me very fast; I didn’t do very well when I played here last time”.

In his book “The Chimp Paradox”, Dr Steve Peters refers to this limbic system as “The Inner Chimp”. As Dr Peters acknowledges, it may not be anatomically or philosophically correct to describe the inner chimp as a separate entity from the “human” brain. But it seems to be an incredibly powerful and useful way of thinking about it. The book also has chapters on achieving success, confidence and happiness, so it really could change your life.

If you find that you have over-reacted to a situation with an emotional response that you later regret, you can blame it on your inner chimp. But it’s like having a pet dog: although you aren’t your dog, you are still responsible for how your dog behaves. So you have to be able to control your inner chimp as you’re responsible for it.

It probably won’t work if you just try and ignore your chimp. You can manage it, however, by setting up default behaviours such as pre-shot rituals in sports such as tennis or golf which enable you to carry out the task before the chimp starts acting up.
 
Recent examples of sportsmen whose chimps seem to be out of control include Andy Murray and Luis Suarez. Of course, since Dr Peters has worked with Suarez, he’s not exactly the best advert when he carries on biting players.

In the end, though, the player has to decide to help himself. Unfortunately, in the case of Suarez, he decided to help himself to a piece of Chiellini’s shoulder.

David Donner

Adam Gilchrist vs Shaun Tait | Access All Areas

This is great footage of Adam Gilchrist facing Shaun Tait at Lords last Saturday. Wearing a GoPro camera on his helmet shows great insight to his vision and movement to enable him to hit 2 boundaries!

World Cup 2014

One good thing about England’s early exit from the World Cup is that we won’t have to endure seeing them lose on penalties. It’s typical that the one time we employ a psychiatrist to help with this, the team gets knocked out in the group stage before a penalty shoot-out becomes possible. It’s probably just as well as the players’ negative attitude to the penalty shoot-out seems to run pretty deep. I was listening to Rio Ferdinand the other day saying that he didn’t think that Dr Peters’ success in sports such as cycling was particularly relevant to taking a penalty in a major tournament. Leaving aside Dr Peters’ successful work with Liverpool FC this season, Ferdinand said “I don’t think one person can have that much of an effect on people; he can ease people’s nerves maybe a little bit and make them feel more confident. But when it comes down to that moment of going up there and taking a penalty, things change”. He went on to say: “It’s one, single split second….you’re in the middle of that pitch, all alone in a massive goldfish bowl, being watched by millions; and that pressure is all steeped on your shoulders in that one moment…it’s difficult…when you walk out there and you’ve got those fans there, it’s different (from practice)." Ferdinand described his own experience of preparing to take a penalty in the Champions’ League Final in 2008: “I was next in line after Gigsy. I couldn’t even concentrate on Gigsy taking it: my legs had gone”. Fortunately for Manchester United, Ferdinand didn’t actually have to take the penalty. I can’t think of a better description of why you should have a psychiatrist or psychologist working with the players to prepare them for the moment when they are likely to be under the most pressure of their lives. One person who did take a penalty for Manchester United that day was Owen Hargreaves, who went after Christiano Ronaldo, who had just missed with his attempt. Hargreaves had practised penalties with a lot of the Chelsea players, such as John Terry, when playing in the World Cup with England. They had seen him go the same way, every day: top left. Michael Ballack had also seen Hargreaves practise penalties with Bayern Munich. “I practised every day; I hadn’t missed for a month; top left. As I went up to the penalty spot, I guessed the Chelsea players were pointing where I was going to go. I thought that might happen. So when I went up there I thought “Why not just put it in the other corner on the bottom”. And as I went up I thought “Christ, that goal looks really small”. I’m going to do what I know best, and see if he can save…if my best is better than your best. And I smashed it top corner and it went in”. It seems you have to have been brought up in Germany to be able to clear your head and concentrate on the task in hand: decide where you are going to aim for; focus on that point in the goal; focus on the ball; shoot. The psychological problems of playing for England seem to run pretty deep. This is Steven Gerrard talking before the Uruguay game: “Basically, to realise it could be a terrible, long, frustrating summer if we don’t get it right on Thursday,” Gerrard recalled. “There is no hiding place for a player when you go out of a tournament earlier than you expect. It can be tough and it can take an awful long time to get over it. A lot of people know that in the dressing room but there are a few young lads in there too, so it was important for them to realise what is at stake and how important this game is. “I have been there. I have had that feeling. So I know what that feeling is about and that is the feeling I don’t want on Friday morning. It wasn’t a message to scare any of the lads but it was a wake-up call to everyone in the room. It wasn’t to scare anyone, or intimidate anyone, but this is the reality of where we are and we need everyone focused and right on it, individually and collectively, on Thursday, otherwise it is going to be a terrible, long summer.” I somehow doubt that Dr Peters (about whom more in due course) advised the England captain to dwell on the consequences of losing a match on the eve of playing it. That might, however, be at least a partial explanation for how Gerrard and the team played. David Donner

The A - Z of Sports Vision - The Zone

Some athletes, when they are performing at their peak, appear to be in a world of their own. Nick Faldo, talking about his Open win at Muirfield in 1987 said “Two steps in front of me was my only focal point. The rest was a blur, partly due to the weather and partly because I was completely engrossed”. Tony Jacklin refers to it as being in a cocoon of concentration: “I’m absolutely engaged, involved in what I’m doing at that particular moment”. We now refer to this state as “The Zone”, or “flow”. When a state of flow is reached, a number of chemicals are released in the brain. One of them is a pain-suppressor, Anandamide, which shares similar properties to THC, the active ingredient of Marijuana. Other drugs that are released include amphetamines such as dopamine, endorphins (the name is derived from endogenous morphine), and serotonin, the mood-changing drug that’s released when people take Ecstasy. No wonder athletes talk of “runners’ high”. Getting into the zone requires your subconscious brain to take over control from your conscious brain. This rules out most beginners, as when you are learning a new activity, it’s likely that you are consciously thinking about what you are trying to do. But once you’ve reached the standard of an expert, the main task is to keep conscious thoughts out of it. So if you really try and get in the zone, the chances are you won’t achieve it. The very nature of it requires you not to be trying, not thinking consciously about what you’re doing. Music can help to achieve this state as can visualisation. But another way is to concentrate on your vision – supplying your subconscious brain with the visual information it requires to make the best decisions. Billy Jean King described her experience of the zone as follows: “I concentrate only on the ball in relation to the face of my racket, which is a full time job anyway, since no two balls ever come over the net the same way”. And that seems as good a way as any to end this A to Z of sports vision: I hope you’ve found them of some use or at least interest. I intend to keep blogging. My next one will be a review of a book that could change your life…… David Donner

The A - Z of Sports Vision - Yips

Most people associate the yips with golf. Typically, a player lines up a short putt but, instead of an easy tap in, the player seems to jab at the ball, sending it wide of the hole. In other sports, the condition can become so extreme that the movement becomes completely impossible, such as a darts player who can’t release the dart, or a spin bowler who can’t release the ball. http://puttlab.de/minicms/publications/ARGC_2009_Yips.pdf The cause is not fully understood. One theory is that is caused by an excess of fine muscle activity (focal dystonia), but there seems to be a lot more to it than that. For a start, the prevalence of focal dystonia in the general population is about 3% (Nutt et al 1988), whereas nearly 50% of golfers are said to suffer from the yips to some extent (Smith, Malo et al, 2000).

So there would appear to be a significant psychological element to the yips. In golf, for instance, the yips often disappears if the ball is hidden under a cover and the golfer doesn’t know if there is always a ball to be hit or not. It can also disappear if the ball is fixed to the ground, the hole is removed, or is replaced by a symbolic target like a tee (Marquardt 2009). Often the yips are only apparent for putts of a particular length, and if the putt is longer or shorter than this there is no problem. All this suggests that the problem is not essentially a physical one; otherwise it would still be present in all these other situations, not just in certain situations. Anxiety about the result may well be at the core of the yips, which explains why they are more likely to occur over a short putt, when missing it would be interpreted as a failure, and not for longer putts which have lower expectations of success. As the golfer becomes aware of the problem, the conscious brain starts to interfere with process. This makes the action jerkier and less likely to be successful, so a viscous circle develops as the stress levels rise with each unsuccessful action. There are various psychological methods of dealing with the stress element of the yips; visualisation and self-talk are often useful. One golfer had problems initiating his down-swing. The cure was to get him to say a three-syllable word (“Edelweiss”) to match the timing or rhythm of his swing. So he said Ed-el-weiss to correspond to the initiation of his backswing, the top of his back-swing and the point of contact with the ball (Beilock 2010). But for many a simple treatment is to take them back to when they can swing the club smoothly. This may be achieved by getting them to close their eyes when they strike the ball, or swinging the club without a ball. You then gradually reintroduce the difficulty whilst maintaining the essential visual elements, such the Quiet Eye focus on the ball. This should help keep the conscious brain from interfering. And if things break down again, you retrace the steps (hopefully not right back to the start) and build up again. David Donner