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Do Vision-Blocking Glasses Help or Hurt Sports Performance?

Although these glasses block your vision, you might just perform better

Dr. Daniel Laby
5 min readDec 29, 2022

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A bicycle rider wearing a pair of yellow sports glasses
Photo by Axel Brunst on Unsplash

From professional athletes to weekend warriors, vision plays a critical role in sports performance. But what happens when you wear vision-blocking glasses during a game or practice? Do they help or hurt your performance? In this post, we’ll explore the impact of vision-blocking glasses on sports performance, including how they can help with hand-eye coordination, reaction time, and depth perception.

How Do Vision-Blocking Glasses Work?

Vision-blocking glasses, also known as strobe glasses, are glasses that have lenses that are designed to block out a portion of the visual field. They are used by athletes to help train their vision and improve their hand-eye coordination. The idea is that by blocking out a portion of the visual field, athletes can focus on the limited amount of information they are receiving and be forced to train to process it faster. The glasses are also said to help athletes train their reaction time, as they have to learn how to quickly react to reduced vision.

Studies have also shown that vision-blocking glasses can help athletes with depth perception. Depth perception, or 3D vision, is the ability to judge how far away objects are, which is important for many sports. By wearing the glasses, athletes can practice judging the distance of objects without having to worry about their peripheral vision. This can help them better judge the distance of objects in the game, such as an opponent, the ball, or the goal.

Types of Vision-Blocking Glasses

There are several different types of vision-blocking glasses. The first type blocks both eyes and can be turned on or off at various times. They are often activated manually, by a coach or trainer at a specific time in the sports activity or they can be triggered when a preset infrared beam is crossed either by the athlete themselves or by an opponent.

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Dr. Daniel Laby

Eye Doc for Pro Athletes | 30+ years of experience | Want to improve your performance? Go here 👉 https://DrDanLaby.com