Sports Vision Services

Mon, Wed, Fri: 8am-5pm
Tue, Thu: 9am-6pm

See Clearer. React Faster. Play Smarter. This is our motto for the Sports Vision Clinic, where we analyze and train the visual skills that are essential for peak athletic performance. Our evaluations explore areas of vision that are not assessed during an annual eye examination, and gives us greater insight into understanding where our athletes can improve their game.

How We Can Help:

As our motto says, our goal is to get you seeing clearer and reacting faster. It’s of no surprise that an athlete needs to have clear vision, with the average professional baseball player requiring 20/15 vision or better! But an athlete’s vision is much more than just seeing clearly – we want you to be able to process faster and to keep your eyes steady when tasks become more difficult.

Athletes also must make rapid and accurate decisions to ensure that they are successful on the field. A hockey goalie needs to determine where the puck is going to be shot, a basketball player needs to focus clearly on the rim before shooting, and softball players need to know whether the pitch is a ball or a strike. We can create an individualized training program for athletes, as well as provide on-site screenings for an entire team.

What to Expect:

In order to be evaluated by our Sports Vision Performance clinic, an eye exam with dilation must have been performed within the last year. Our team of students and doctors will evaluate the skills required for your sport over the course of an exam lasting 1-2 hours, including a consultation at the end with the head doctor. If training is recommended to improve your visual skills, weekly training sessions lasting 45-minutes each will be scheduled.

Our clinic uses the same equipment used by professional and collegiate teams across the country to give our Phoenix Valley athletes the highest quality training possible. We are ready to help bring your game to the next level.

Clinic Contact Information:

If you are a coach or an athletic director interested in scheduling our team of students and doctors for a screening, please contact our Vision Therapist at (623) 806-7246.

Take A Closer Look

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Optical Services

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Vision Specialty Services

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What To Expect

How Training Can Help & Getting Started

Sports vision training helps develop skills that are important to the athlete.

Dynamic Visual Acuity
Is skill allows athletes to see clearly while in motion. Our sports vision optometrists periodically measure how well the athlete can see a moving eye chart to measure his/her dynamic visual acuity.

Contrast Sensitivity
The ability to distinguish between objects of different contrast levels can be critical to athletic success. The outfielder’s ability to follow a baseball against a bright sky and the golfer’s ability to differentiate the green from the fairway or the rough are examples of the importance of contrast sensitivity.

Visual Reaction Time
Visual reaction time is the time it takes for a baseball player to make a decision to swing the bat after the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. This skill is also extremely important in other high-speed sports like racquetball, tennis, and hockey.

Peripheral Awareness
Being aware of action in the peripheral vision field while looking at action straight ahead can be a challenge. This skill is invaluable for point guards in basketball or middle infielders in baseball.

These are a few of the many sports-related visual skills that can be improved with a carefully designed and individualized program of sports vision training.

Getting Started

Sports vision training at the Eye Institute is individually programmed for the specific needs of each patient. A sports vision training program may take a few weeks or a few months, depending on individual goals. Once a sports vision evaluation has been performed, and specific deficient visual skills identified, sports vision training can make a profound difference in athletic performance.

If you are a coach and interested in this type of training, please call 623.537.6000 or email us azmwueyeinstitute@midwestern.edu.