No abstract

Background: Vision is one of the most important qualities required of athletes. It provides players with an ability to perform sport-related drills, as well as applying decision-making skills. In order to accurately measure the visual ability of athletes, it is important to first identify the variety of visual skills involved in the sport, in this case rugby. Objectives: The objectives of the review novelty are to identify the most important visual skills for rugby. To create a referencing point for future studies to be able to add additional visual skills essential to rugby players. Methods: An electronic search was conducted to assess the scientific literature relating to the visual skills required for rugby. Only peer-reviewed articles written in English were included in the search. Data on the relationship with match performance, the problem definition or purpose of the study, and the inclusion of a theoretical definition of tactical behavior were extracted. Discussion: The most important visual skills in rugby are: Visual acuity, Eye tracking, Eye focusing, Depth perception, Hand-eye coordination, Fixation, Fusion flexibility, Visual adjustability and Colour flexibility. Rugby players must pay attention to their teammates' positions, understand the opponent's actions and tactics, handle the ball, analyze the current situation, and predict what will happen.

The present study aimed to compare the visual expertise of non-athletes (n ¼ 40; 19-35 years old; age: 22.13 AE 2.37 years) to amateur, non-professional South-African Rugby Union (SARU) first-division club rugby players (n ¼ 40; 19-35 years old; age: 23.88 AE 4.36 years; training age mean: 9.0 AE 1.5 years). Research suggests that athletes have enhanced visio-spatial expertise in comparison to non-athletes. However, conflicting research suggests that this is not always the case as non-athletes possess similar visio-spatial expertise in certain visual skills. Participants underwent an optometric assessment after which the following 6 visio-spatial intelligence (VSI) components were measured; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory and hand-eye coordination using the following tests; hart near far rock, saccadic eye movement, evasion, accumulator, flash memory and ball wall toss tests. Results indicated that first-division rugby players performed significantly better (p 0.05) in five of the six tests performed, except for visual memory (p ¼ 0.893). While this study substantiates the notion that athletes, in this case first-division rugby players, performs significantly better in most VSI components, this is not the case for all, as with visual memory in this study. To more accurately distinguish between athletes and non-athletes, research should move away from tests that focus on basic visual function and develop sport specific testing methods that can be used by a variety of sports.

: Sport has become increasingly competitive, prompting the need to determine, as far as possible, any likely performance advantage. While the focus of athletic research, testing, and training is on the physiological and physical characteristics of the sport, visual abilities not only affect sport performance directly, but also affect the acquisition of motor skills. Vision, and visual-spatial intelligence (VSI), are a relatively new and underexplored area of athletic performance. As with physiological and physical parameters, a range of factors affect vision and VSI in sporting activities. This review of the literature is a first attempt to summarize and compile an overview of the factors affecting vision and VSI in athletes, covering those previously connected with sport, as well as those hitherto not associated with athletic activities, but that could also play a part in sports performance. The evidence from this review suggests that while current research still tends to focus on single factors affecting vision and VSI, a large number of such factors have been identified that could affect vision and VSI. This offers new opportunities for researchers to investigate the effects of a combination of factors, and for conditioning and/or sports vision specialists to explore further possibilities for competitive advantage.

Background: Despite it being purported that acute, prolonged maximal periods of exercise may impair visual performance, little/no research on this topic is forthcoming. In fact, research has demonstrated that sub-maximal and maximal acute exercise may actually improve cognitive and sensory tasks and thus possibly improve visual performance. Objectives: This study aimed to ascertain the influence of an acute, prolonged maximal bout of exercise on visual performance. Methods: A quantitative study was undertaken with 60 untrained males being divided into a control group (CON; n = 30) or treatment group (TRE; n = 30). Both groups completed a baseline vision test battery consisting of accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory, and hand-eye coordination using the following tests; Hart Near Far Rock, saccadic eye movement, evasion, accumulator, flash memory and Ball Wall Toss tests. Two weeks later, participants returned for follow-up testing using the same vision test battery, with the TRE participants first engaging in a standardized incremental maximal treadmill protocol immediately prior to their vision testing. Results: Following the incremental maximal treadmill protocol, statistical analyses indicated that statistically significant (P ≤ 0.05) differences existed for accommodation facility, saccadic eye movements, speed of recognition, hand-eye coordination, peripheral awareness, and visual memory between pre-test and after the aerobic treatment (P = 0.00 for all measures). Conclusions: This study indicates that an acute, prolonged maximal bout of running improves visual performance. As such, an appropriate prolonged maximal warm-up may be required as opposed to a standardized and general warm-up when preparing an athlete for visual skills training or for participation in an athletic event that requires optimal visual performance.