Wes Welker, Receiver for the New England Patriots,
after missing a tough catch in the Superbowl on Sunday

I had a completely different topic started for today’s blog and newsletter but I can’t pass on writing about Wes Welker’s almost-amazing, almost-game-winning miss in Sunday’s Superbowl game and the visual mechanisms involved in it.

Now, what does that have to do with YOUR health and fitness??

Well, actually more than you’d think.  Vision is the dominant sensory system in the human body and it could just be the cause of your lack of progress in fitness.  Read on to learn why, and see a couple amazing success stories at Athlon…

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There’s been a huge uproar of people on the internet blaming the Patriot’s loss last weekend to Welker’s missed catch.  And apparently a bunch of idiots sent Butterfingers to Copley Square to mock him… Come on people!!  Don’t you have anything else to worry about in this world???

However, even Welker put the blame on himself stating,

“It’s one of those plays I made 1,000 times,  the ball is right there. I’ve just got to make the play.”
“It comes to be the biggest moment of my life and I don’t come up with it. It’s discouraging.”

It’s very honorable of Welker to take the blame, but not right.  The complex physiology and neurology that allowed Welker to even get a hand on that ball in that situation is nothing short of amazing… and the topic of today’s article.

Whether you’re catching footballs or walking around your house, the role of vision in the body’s overall abilities, fitness and YES, Weight Loss is crucial.  It is the dominant sensory system in the human body and plays a key role in everything we do.  And Welker’s vision has been shown time and time again to be superior to most other human beings.  Unfortunately, not this last Sunday.  Personally, I feel it was a poorly thrown ball and the quarterback, Tom Brady, is just as much to blame if not more, but you decide for yourself below…

Welker is 5’9″, running at near top speed and the ball is thrown extremely hard and fast, four feet over his head and behind him.  Yet he still manages to leap a couple feet in the air off one leg, spin 180-degrees in mid-air and reach up and put his two hands in the exact location of the path of the ball.  That’s amazing athleticism.

Here’s the problem, he failed to “grasp” at just the right moment (when it hit his hands).  And trust me the way the ball was thrown, his “grasp” would have had to be perfect and defying of our natural human visual instincts explained below… (again much of the blame should be on the quarterback for throwing a ball that was almost uncatchable yet made to look good by an amazing athlete…)

Fact is, it’s very natural and actually instinctive to miss that ball in that situation.  We humans are very good at “predicting” where a projectile is going to be, then taking our eyes off of it and using our “muscle memory” to place our hands in just the right spot to catch it.  That’s how they’re designed to work.

The eyes only quickly look at a projectile to get a snap shot of where it’s going to be then they’re put onto the next task so we can already be predicting what’s going to happen next.  That’s how the human nervous system works.  We are great at prediction and ultimately built to focus on prediction.

You see, human beings aren’t built for performance… we’re built for survival.  And survival means prediction.  After millennia of survival we humans have become amazing “predictors.”  It’s extremely important that we “see” and “predict” what’s going to happen ahead of time (for instance, that we see the Saber-Toothed Tiger long before we “feel” it dragging us away, right?!).

If there is any reason Wes Welker could be blamed for missing that ball it’s simply that in such an awkward and dangerous position his instincts took over to look ahead for the impending danger coming, i.e., the fast approaching hard ground and avoiding being crushed by the two very large defenders that were closing in on him!  Usually he’s a good enough athlete to still “grasp” at the right moment.  Just not that one in a thousandth time on Sunday…

Yes, keeping your eyes on the projectile all the way into the hands and grasping at the perfect moment is very difficult to do, even unnatural, taking years of practice to break the desire of the nervous system to look ahead.  I’ll describe a good drill to work on this skill in a moment but first let’s discuss vision and movement a little more…

The body relies primarily on three sensory systems to program for and create movement.  Without any one of them we’re in a lot of trouble… (in order):

1. VISION (eyesight and its processing in the brain)
2. VESTIBULAR (the inner ear)
3. PROPRIOCEPTION (the sensory system that tells the body where it’s parts are at and how fast they’re moving)

That order is important to understand.   The information coming in through your visual system dominates all other sensory systems for the reasons stated above, it’s key to survival.  And survival is what we’re built for, not performance.  You have a startle reflex, but you don’t have a dunk reflex… or a home run reflex!

Vision, for the point of survival, i.e., “prediction,” is always going to dominate, and based on that hierarchy absolutely key to all movement.

I was just talking to my friend and client, Dave Alles, about his golf swing and he stated that every time he’s having a bad day he discovers that he’s pulling his head (and vision) up off the ball early, which ruins his swing.  When he realizes it and consciously forces his vision to not look ahead his swing improves.   Essentially, he over-rides the natural instinctive movement of the eyes to look ahead and forces them to stay down on the ball.  Hence, performance is improved… but if there are any tigers on the course he’s is big trouble!

This visual dominance is very important to understand.  It could be the culprit when you’re not accomplishing something physically even though you’re working hard at it.  You could be being sabotaged by a visual issue… even in the case of building strength, flexibility or fat loss.  Let me give you an interesting example (and success story):

I recently worked with a high school basketball player that had pretty lousy flexibility.  She was concerned about it and felt it may be hurting her agility on the court (which it probably was).  I had her perform a forward bend (reach for your toes) to test her flexibility and she could barely reach mid-way down her shin bones.  I then did some drills “exercising” her left eye (which I had previously noticed didn’t track objects as smoothly as the right one).  After 45 seconds of left eye “exercises” I had her retest her forward bend.  She put both hands on the floor…

A dramatic improvement in hamstring and back flexibility in 45 seconds with NO stretching… How’s that possible?

Well, as I said above, the visual system is the dominant sensory system in the human body and will take precedence over all others (for survival purposes).  If your brain is not comfortable that the visual system is working optimally (e.g., one eye is sending slightly different signals than the other when tracking objects) it will use the proprioceptive system to “slow your muscles down.”  Or in this case, tighten them up for “safety.”  It wasn’t due to tissue changes in her muscles and joints, it was her visual system “putting the brakes on” for safety.  And you’d be really surprised at how many people are affected by this…

Remember, our bodies are built to survive.  And if there’s any threat, (real or just perceived), we’ll tighten up and put the brakes on for safety.  You can imagine what this will do to your athleticism.  The goal of all athletics (and life for that matter) is to move quickly and efficiently.  This won’t happen if the visual system is even the least bit “unsure” of itself.

Now think about your golf swing, your free throw shooting or just your navigating around the garden… can you see how important your vision is to not only being able to “see” where you’re going but for how well your muscles work and allow you to move when you go there?  Can you see how you could be prevented from expressing as much strength or flexibility or speed as you’d like in the gym and hence not get the progress that you think you should???  Vision is absolutely critical.

Now, at this juncture, there’s an important point that needs to be understood… “eyesight” is not “vision.”  Eyesight merely refers to the ability to see something clearly like the so-called 20/20 or 20/30 eyesight, meaning if you stand 20 feet away from a snellen chart (see above) and can only read a line that “most” other people can read standing 30 feet away, you have “20/30 eyesight.”  This is static visual acuity, and simply refers to your ability to “see” standing still.  But how often in real life are you just standing still?

That’s not “vision.”

Vision involves the ability to take the incoming information, process it and obtain meaning from it.  This involves multiple areas of skill and is absolutely critical in not only sport but all aspects of your life.

Static visual acuity (eyesight) is a very small part of “vision.”  Eye movements, rapidly changing your focus from near to far and back again, converging and diverging on objects, etc. Those are a eye skills that are crucial to what we really do in life:  move, intake information, process it, derive meaning from it and then act accordingly.  That’s what you’re doing at all times of the day, and especially when you’re driving…  Yet, to get a license you just have to stand still and read a non-moving chart 20 feet away.  Something’s not quite right about that I think…

I like to work with my athletes on four other very important visual drills to enhance those life skills above…

(which by the way, ALL my clients are athletes, from my 16 year old basketball players to my 90 year old librarians… everyone is an athlete in my eyes)

One of those four drills is an eye tracking drill where you practice tracking objects with your eye(s) all the way to your hands.  We call it “Letter-ball.”  I toss them a tennis ball with letters painted on it and they call out the letter that is visible just before it hits their hand and they catch it.  This forces the eye(s) to track it right into the hand (rather than the instinctual “glance at it” and then move the vision off of it relying only on muscle memory to place the hands correctly and catch it, which sometimes fails, e.g., Welker’s case).

Here’s a quick video of us doing it:

(By the way, the toughest part of getting this drill is often learning how to “knuckleball” it to your partner so that it doesn’t spin in the air so they can get a read on it.)

 
And here’s a more advanced version…

 
Any athlete that works on this drill 2-3 times per week will really improve in their sport as a result.  But not only is it good for athletes it’s good for everyone!  Who doesn’t need their eyes to improve and work optimally all the time?  (I wish some of the people driving around here did this drill more often that’s for sure!)

It forces your eyes to exercise… yes, it’s weightlifting for the eyes.  And that’s a good thing.

Your eyes are moved and controlled by muscles, six little extra-ocular muscles that surround it.  The more in shape they are the more “clarity” your nervous system will be getting every second.  And, as demonstrated above with the basketball player and the golf example, the more clarity your nervous system is getting about its environment the more it will take the brakes off your muscles and joints and allow you to move as an athlete… no matter what your age!

Don’t believe me?  I have another client that’s been doing his eye exercises that I showed him daily and he just reported to me last week that at his latest optometrist appointment he decreased his eye glasses prescription by two factors and the previous discrepancy between his left and right eye has all but disappeared.  That’s awesome and shows the power of exercise (once again).

Now, guess what else is going to happen soon??

He’s going to get stronger… a LOT stronger… burn more body fat… become more flexible (already has done that)… become more agile and athletic… and more… as a result of having good, quality information coming into his nervous system through his now “strong” eyes!!

Here’s to taking the brakes off,

Ryan

P.S. if you’re not making fitness gains like you think you should come into Athlon and fix that problem.  We’ve got quite a track record for that, whether it be your eyes not working correctly or your exercise program just not the right one for you!  Click here to sign up for your FREE consultation and learn how we can help you get the specific improvements you’re looking for!

 

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