In modern sports performance, coaches and practitioners are constantly searching for the next competitive edge, often exploring unconventional realms of athletic preparation. Recently, notable track and field coach Chris Korfist and football coach Dan Fichter sat down to discuss a critical yet frequently misunderstood component of training: the visual system. Rather than treating vision work as a collection of trendy, universal eye exercises, Korfist and Fichter emphasize a practical, individualized approach centered on identifying specific visual tasks, measuring their metabolic and neurological costs, and determining whether they genuinely improve an athlete’s movement quality.
The discussion, moderated by Chris Kerr, delves into how visual training intersects with sprinting, football, and weight room dynamics. By analyzing phenomena such as saccades, anti-saccades, tracking, and balance, the coaches provide a grounded framework for evaluating how the eyes influence physical output. Their overarching message urges coaches to carefully observe the athlete’s immediate response to any visual intervention, ensuring that the prescribed work actually enhances performance rather than inadvertently degrading motor control.
Start With the Athlete’s Response
The conversation opens with a look at high-profile examples, such as NFL quarterback C.J. Stroud’s pregame eye movements, before pivoting to the fundamental mechanics of vertical and horizontal saccades—the rapid movements the eyes make as they shift from one target to another. Fichter explains that the utility of these movements depends entirely on rigorous individual testing. Specifically, he describes horizontal saccades as a powerful tool oriented around balance.
For field and track coaches, the immediate diagnostic question is not whether a drill looks advanced or sophisticated, but whether it produces a tangible, positive change in balance, foot contact mechanics, or the subsequent athletic movement. Fichter offers a direct word of caution regarding the introduction of novel visual tasks, noting that if an intervention fails to yield a performance improvement, coaches must recognize that the visual system may actually be compromising the athlete’s coordination during that execution.
To further regulate movement, Fichter occasionally pairs visual tasks with an external rhythm, citing research referencing a tempo of 120 beats per minute for balance work involving horizontal saccades, though he routinely alters this tempo depending on the practical demands of a training session. He draws a vital distinction between an athlete establishing their own internal cadence versus reacting to an external auditory or visual cue. This rhythmic tempo serves as a specific tool from their broader discussions rather than a rigid universal target meant to be applied indiscriminately to every athlete or every visual task.
Visual Inhibition Is Part of Stopping
Beyond simple tracking and scanning, the coaches explore the concept of visual inhibition, which plays a major role in how athletes decelerate and change direction. Fichter routinely incorporates anti-saccades into training regimens with football players. This specific task trains an athlete to look away from a sudden visual stimulus rather than reflexively following it with their eyes.
Fichter links this inhibitory control directly to the complex decision-making processes an athlete must execute when coming to a rapid stop or shifting momentum on the field. The core training target, according to Fichter, revolves around an athlete’s conscious ability to inhibit where they naturally want to look. Coaches can approach this as a distinct perceptual demand, carefully observing whether improvements in visual inhibition successfully transfer to live environments where athletes must react dynamically to the unpredictable movements of opposing players.
Progress the Task Without Losing the Basics
As athletes master basic visual exercises, coaches often face the challenge of progressing the training without abandoning foundational principles. Fichter outlines a progression where athletes track a tennis ball suspended from a band, forcing the ball to move dynamically toward and away from them. Transitioning from a stationary position on a bench to standing, navigating active gait, and tracking a moving target introduces significantly higher visual and postural demands. Fichter reminds practitioners of the underlying trade-offs, emphasizing that coaches must always understand the true cost of these advanced tasks.
At the same time, Korfist takes a pragmatic, scalable approach suited for larger team environments. When working with sprinters, Korfist closely monitors head and eye behavior during acceleration and maximum velocity, utilizing basic movement resets and pulling aside individual athletes who display glaring visual or postural inefficiencies.
This philosophy extends directly into the weight room, where Korfist occasionally introduces specialized dribbling glasses that block an athlete’s lower visual field. This restriction forces athletes to rely heavily on proprioception and feel where their feet are positioned in space. However, Korfist stresses that this is intended for occasional, targeted use. Within a large track group, he maintains simple foundational tasks for the collective team, reserving individualized interventions exclusively for athletes who demonstrate a genuine, observed need. The addition of any visual tool should serve a clear purpose rather than devolving into an arbitrary drill assigned to the entire roster.
Keep Vision Work Brief and Individual
A major theme of the discussion is the potential for visual fatigue. Korfist shares a personal cautionary tale regarding his own experimentation with prism lenses. He notes that a specialist initially prescribed an exposure of only a few seconds per day, but when Korfist attempted to extend his practice to twenty minutes on his own accord, he experienced significant adverse physical effects that required up to two weeks to fully recover from.
Fichter echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that convergence, gaze stabilization, and other intensive eye exercises can quickly induce neurological fatigue and must be progressed gradually. While Korfist’s prolonged exposure serves as a personal account rather than a formalized clinical rule, it highlights a shared coaching principle: begin conservatively, meticulously observe the athlete’s immediate response, and avoid the temptation to turn a striking training demonstration into a mandatory, high-volume prescription for an entire team.
Ultimately, both coaches advocate for a disciplined, evidence-based approach to vision training in athletics. By prioritizing individual assessment, respecting the neurological and physical costs of visual tasks, and closely monitoring movement outcomes, coaches can effectively integrate vision work into traditional strength and conditioning programs without compromising overall athletic development.
