The curtains are drawn and Sean Stevens steps in front of a large blackboard.
A series of red lights flash sequentially around his head, creating a halo. The red orbs then snake and swerve, creating a target formation, flashing. The countdown begins as Stevens holds both hands up, palms parallel to the board.
“Slap!”
Stevens hits the red light glowing to his left, switching it off.
“Slap!”
He hits one to the right then another one above his head. The red lights continue to dance.
To an outsider, this might look like an intense game of Whac-a-Mole. But for the athletes training at River Valley Health, this game of sorts helps improve their reaction time by working their peripheral vision and cognitive processing.
What stands before Stevens is the Dynavision D2, a tool that has been in existence since the mid-’80s for training and rehabilitation of high performance athletes and members of the military. Both the Edmonton Oilers and the Edmonton Eskimos have used the light board as part of their training regimens.
The technology is now becoming widespread in sports performance and rehabilitation centres across North America for use among amateur athletes.
The user stands in front of a board covered in 64 lights, which are programmed to run hundreds of different programs. The patterns can involve moving lights – which the athlete must hit while standing at the centre of the board – and for a greater challenge, some programs require the user to call out numbers displayed on a small centre screen, while also hitting the flashing lights.
Nicolas Allen, a sports psychologist at River Valley Health, says his clients come from all over the Edmonton region, including St. Albert and Spruce Grove. Many of them are hockey players; the light board challenges their peripheral awareness, thus improving their reaction times and decision-making capabilities.
“We can’t change our peripheral vision, that’s biologically set. But our peripheral awareness – the amount of information that we actually take in and process – we can improve that with physical training,” explains Allen.
“A hockey player for example, (they have) to see the ice and decide, ‘am I going to make the pass to the right or to the left?’”
Stevens is a recreational flag football player. He says he has noticed an improvement in his hand-eye coordination after six weeks of training on the light board twice per week. Programs usually span six to 12 weeks, two 30-minute sessions per week.
“My season just started, but I’ve noticed I’ve been getting off my stance a lot quicker. The extra quarter of a second that I can get quicker than the (offensive) lineman, gives me that extra bit of help,” he explains.
Numerous studies have shown the increased speed of recognition and accuracy athletes have displayed as a result of Dynavision training, from increased batting averages to improved concentration under stress.
Allen notes the benefits of training carry easily from the playing field into the classroom.
“We’ve had a nine-year-old on here and he’s had tremendous improvements. Not only his on-ice performance but also in school, his concentration in school is improving,” he says, adding the target audience of this technology is bantam and midget hockey players.
Allen says that usually with training, “you use it, or you lose it,” but with this type of assessment, many athletes are still able to maintain their speeds after their training is finished because they are working the same skills in the field.
“The nice thing about this for athletes in particular is that even if they stop (the training) and they’re doing their sports, there won’t be that much of a drop in their reaction time.”
River Valley Health is one of three facilities in Edmonton housing the Dynavision D2, which has already been used by almost 200 athletes. Training sessions come at a cost of $42 per half hour, Tuesdays through Saturdays.
The $12,000 machine is also used at Zone Performance Psychology and the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital. The Glenrose uses the equipment as part of a rehabilitation program for stroke and brain-injury patients.
