SPARQ Sensory Performance: Provide wearers near super-human improvement in visual senses

SPARQ Sensory Performance: Provide wearers near super-human improvement in visual senses

Innovative leaps in vision science allows athletes to polish sensory skills needed on the field of play

BY BEN STRACK

SPARQ Sensory Performance (SSP) is a system of technologies designed to evaluate, analyze, and improve the wearer’s visual and sensory capabilities.

The Vapor Strobe Eyewear is designed with an adjustable head strap, and liquid-crystal lens technology and the strobe effect can be varied in speed for different degrees of training.

The glasses are developed by Nike. By fusing sensory and physical training together, the product’s main mission is to keep athletes one step ahead of the game, providing them with the tools to succeed in their sport.

What features does SSP provide?

In order to get better at anything, you must first know what you are doing wrong, and develop a plan to improve whatever it might be. With this in mind, the SSP uses the Nike Sensory Station to first assess athletes based on 10 visual and sensory performance skills, including hand-eye coordination, depth perception, and recognition of a peripheral target, as it related to their particular sport.

The station then computes the data it receives from the user into a performance profile that compares an athlete’s skills to others at their sport, position, and skill level. Once the profile is made, the athlete is given feedback on next steps to take to improve.

This sample sensory performance profile of a high school hockey goalie gives steps to improve based on the assessment of the athlete’s visual performance skills (displayed on the right).

One helpful tool you can work into your training program after the evaluation process is the Vapor Strobe Eyewear (seen at the beginning of the article). If you’ve ever been to a party with strobe lights, you know that the flicker effect of the light can disrupt vision, alternating between a clear and obstructed line of sight. Well, believe it or not, incorporating this effect into an athlete’s training regimen can actually enhance reaction time since he or she is forced to anticipate movements during the short periods of blocked vision.

Such training could help a batter quicken reflexes to catch up to a 95-mph fastball, or better read the trajectory of a hanging curveball.

SPARQ Strobe eyewear users can bring skills they gained while training into game situations.

Vapor Strobe Eyewear also improves memory

In addition to improving an athlete’s ability to pick up subtle motion cues, visual information processing, and timing of motion, a study by Duke University found that the Vapor Strobes can also improve memory.

Students on sports teams at Duke University participated in a visual memory test before and after training. The athletes were asked to look at eight letters displayed on a screen and recall one of the eight. In order to do so, the students had to retain the letters by filling their entire working memory, or “memory buffer.” Those who trained with the vapor strobe eyewear showed a better ability to retain the information in this part of their memory than the athletes not using the eyewear, according to Greg Appelbaum, assistant professor of psychiatry at Duke University, and conductor of the study.

Final thoughts

Like wearing ankle weights while running, the strobe technology conditions one’s eyes to get used to disrupted vision only to make it feel easier when you return to normal sensory and physical situations.

Science and sports will never be one and the same, but the Nike SPARQ Sensory Performance proves that integrating them can be beneficial. ■

Story via: Nike, Inc.