An overview of important vision skills for Gymnastics

and how sports vision training can improve performance

Sports Vision Training for Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a performance sport which requires extremely precise body control, and excellent precision, in order to carry out the impressive and complex routines that most people are familiar with. While there are many skills which are vital to a gymnast’s success, there are also a number of vision skills which, if improved, can help a gymnast reach those truly elite levels.

Sports vision training provides athletes with a competitive advantage by improving the specific visual skills they need for the position and sport they play.

Core Visual Skills

While there are a number of vision skills that are important for gymnasts, some are more crucial to performance than others.

Core vision skills for gymnasts include:

Eye-Hand-Foot-Body Coordination: The importance of proper coordination for gymnasts cannot be understated, as this sport, more than most others, relies on precise timing and body control. Improving this vision skill is vital for a high-level gymnast.
Depth Perception: In gymnastics, athletes often need to make precise landings, and make other complex movements over some distance after going airborne. For both increased performance and for overall safety, it’s vital that they have elite level depth perception.
Visual Memory: When performing, gymnasts often go through pre-prepared routines. Visual memory is a skill which enables a gymnast to better remember those details, in addition to remembering key details on the area where she’ll be performing, such as the distances involved.
Reaction Time: Gymnasts run through their routines very quickly, and there is little room for error. Improved reaction time will lead to better timing, and also increased ability to improvise if something does go wrong.

Secondary Visual Skills

Secondary visual skills for gymnasts aren’t necessarily any less important than core visual skills, though they are not quite as central to what is needed for a gymnast to be successful.

Binocularity: Binocularity is a vision skill which allows both eyes to work together precisely and with good coordination. This skill is important for spatial coordination, which is the ability to take in information about the locations of objects in three-dimensional environments. In gymnastics, this helps the gymnast better focus on and interact with equipment such as a bar or pommel horse, and, with the improved ability to focus both eyes together, precise landings will become easier as well.
Visualization: As with many other sports, the ability to mentally see yourself succeeding at executing an action, can greatly help a gymnast up her game. As strange as it might sound, seeing yourself in your mind’s eye successfully pulling off a new routine can actually make you more likely to succeed when you do it for real. Improving your ability to do that will pay dividends when it comes time to compete.

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