Abstract
Background: The importance of vision and its impact upon an athlete’s performance has long been recognized by elite athletic communities. In recent decades, stroboscopic training methods have been developed to help train athletes from a visual, perceptual, and cognitive perspective using strobe glasses. Objective: Herein a comprehensive literature review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of strobe glasses in training collegiate and professional athletes. Methods: This comprehensive literature review investigates the origins, attention influences, tasks, practitioner takeaways, and cost feasibility of stroboscopic visual training.Results: The findings from this review show promise of benefits from utilizing strobe glasses during training scenarios, particularly for improving fast or impulsive tasks. Strobe glasses can be accommodated into varying sporting environments and training regimens while being affordable to athletic, coaching, and training departments or centers. Studies investigating the direct influence of stroboscopic training on subsequent performance demonstrate viable methods for strengthening fundamental visual abilities. Notably, these fundamental abilities have been shown to correlate with improved game performance. Though early results are promising, there are still significant areas for further research and more comprehensive designs of stroboscopic training studies. Conclusion: This review highlights potential benefits and existing research gaps concerning the use of stroboscopic eyewear as an intervention method in sports. The delineation of optimal applications for strobe glasses is undetermined; however, information presented in this review can be meaningfully applied by coaching practitioners who are considering adopting the technology.
Highlights
Stroboscopic visual training (SVT) is best defined by Wilkins et al in that it “is the practice of placing individuals under conditions of intermittent vision, often using specialized eyewear, in an attempt to enhance visual and perceptual skills” (Wilkins, Nelson, & Tweddle, 2018)
Objective: a comprehensive literature review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of strobe glasses in training collegiate and professional athletes
Stroboscopic training has been utilized to study visual, cognitive, and perceptual skills for almost 30 years, and researchers have examined the importance of eyes and vision with respect to sports since as early as the 1960’s (Erickson, 2018; Wilkins & Appelbaum, 2020)
Summary
Stroboscopic visual training (SVT) is best defined by Wilkins et al in that it “is the practice of placing individuals under conditions of intermittent vision, often using specialized eyewear, in an attempt to enhance visual and perceptual skills” (Wilkins, Nelson, & Tweddle, 2018). In theory, these visual improvements brought about by SVT will transfer to improved motor performance, especially from a sporting task perspective (Wilkins et al, 2018). Objective: a comprehensive literature review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of strobe glasses in training collegiate and professional athletes.
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