Sports Vision Radio

About Sports Vision Radio

Welcome to the podcast where vision meets performance. Hosted by Dr. Daniel Laby, one of the world’s leading Sports Vision Specialists with over 30 years of experience working with professional, Olympic, and elite athletes across the globe. This show is designed for athletes, coaches, parents, and performance-minded professionals who want to understand how the visual system, what you see and how your brain processes it, directly impacts your ability to compete at the highest level. Each episode dives into the science and strategy behind visual performance: from reaction time and focus control, to decision-making speed, visual processing, and beyond. Whether you’re on the field, in the gym, or in the dugout, you’ll learn practical insights and cutting-edge methods to train your eyes and brain to work together, so you can play sharper, smarter, and faster. Because seeing clearly is just the beginning. This is about vision that wins!

Publisher

Daniel M. Laby

Category

health & fitness · sports

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 Oct 2024

Latest episode

16 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

97 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   16 Sept 2026

   The Right Amount of Noise

   Everything in training assumes that cleaner is better. Cleaner mechanics, cleaner reps, cleaner video, cleaner data. For most of what we do, that is correct. For the visual system, it is sometimes exactly backward. In this episode, Dr. Laby unpacks stochastic resonance, the phenomenon that in a nonlinear system, adding a precise amount of random noise makes a weak signal easier to detect rather than harder. He walks through Figure 10.1 from Chapter 10 of Eye of the Champion, where a greyscale flag invisible at low contrast emerges once the right amount of noise is added, then disappears again when too much is piled on. The explanation sits at the level of a single neuron: a go or no-go device that stays silent below its firing threshold, and that a little random fluctuation can push over the edge. Then he brings it to the field. A hitter has roughly 100 milliseconds to identify a pitch, working from the orientation and rate of spinning seams on a three inch ball at 40 to 50 feet. That is a near-threshold signal, which is exactly the regime where stochastic resonance operates. The turn in the episode is an honest one. The obvious question is who benefits, and the literature does not currently agree. A 2008 study in Tokyo found that the quieter an observer’s internal neural noise, the larger their gain. A 2025 study in Ankara, with 149 participants, found the opposite: the largest gains went to those with the lowest baseline sensitivity. A separate 2023 finding is harder still, showing that an individually optimized noise dose did not replicate when retested in a different session. The conclusion is a dose, not a direction. More is not better. Optimal is better, and right now, nobody can reliably find the same optimum twice in the same athlete. Episode Timestamps 0:00 The assumption that cleaner is always better, and where it breaks down 0:35 What stochastic resonance is, and why Chapter 10 of Eye of the Champion gives it a section 1:05 Figure 10.1: a greyscale flag, six levels of noise, and the dose in the middle 1:45 Why a single neuron behaves this way: firing thresholds and go or no-go 2:30 Noise carries no information, it lends the signal a push 2:55 The hitter’s 100 millisecond window, and why spinning seams are a near-threshold signal 3:25 Beyond vision: the Ross ankle instability trial and balance from noise too faint to feel 3:55 Who benefits? The 2008 Tokyo stereoscope study and internal neural noise 4:35 The 2025 Ankara study, 149 participants, and the opposite answer 5:05 The 2023 replication problem: Monday’s optimal dose is not Tuesday’s 5:35 The inverted U, and why overshooting degrades the athlete 6:00 Noise on a screen works as well as noise through electrodes 6:20 Nothing to report on the spin app yet, and the bottom line In This Episode, You’ll Learn What stochastic resonance is, in plain language, and why noise can help rather than hurt Why the single neuron’s firing threshold is what makes the whole phenomenon possible Why a hitter’s pitch identification window is a textbook near-threshold signal detection problem That sub-sensory noise improved postural control in a randomized trial of people with unstable ankles Why two careful studies disagree about which athlete benefits, and what that means for prescribing Why an individually optimized noise dose may not survive to the next day That the dose-response curve is an inverted U, so overshooting actively degrades performance Why noise delivered through a display works about as well as noise delivered through electrodes What has not been studied at all: pitch recognition, spin discrimination, and any competitive outcome Helpful Resources Sports Vision NYC (http://sportsvision.nyc) Connect with Dr. Laby on Instagram (https://instagram.com/sportsvisionnyc) Pick Up a Copy of Eye of the Champion (https://training.sportsvision.nyc/eye-of-the-champion) Download The Ultimate Sports Vision Guide for Athletes [FREE] (https://sportsvision.nyc) Don’t forget to subscribe to Sports Vision Radio so you never miss an episode on the science of peak performance.

2. 

   9 Sept 2026

   Why Your Peripheral Vision May Predict Your Next ACL Injury

   You jump for the ball. A defender moves into your peripheral vision. A teammate calls for the pass. Your original plan is gone, and you make a new decision in mid-air before you even land. What started that movement wasn’t your legs — it was your vision. This episode breaks down a 2026 study in Sports Health that tested 50 healthy athletes on a jump-land-jump task under rising visual and cognitive demand. Error rates climbed from 0% when the task was predictable to 2.8% when it wasn’t, to 35.5% when peripheral-vision demand and cognitive pressure were combined — and when athletes failed, their landing mechanics shifted toward the exact pattern (increased knee abduction, reduced joint flexion) associated with greater ACL loading. Dr. Laby connects this new finding to nearly two decades of research — Swanik (2007), Wilkerson, a 2023 systematic review, and the 2015 Grooms/Appelbaum/Onate clinical framework — and to the Sports Vision Pyramid from Eye of the Champion. The throughline: ACL injury and re-injury risk may be partly a visual-cognitive load-tolerance problem, one that shows up not on an athlete’s best rep, but at the moment attention is stretched and a rapid decision has to be made. Episode Timestamps 0:00 — Intro: the jump, the defender, the mid-air decision 0:52 — Vision is prediction: why great athletes seem to have more time 1:38 — The 2026 study: jump-land-jump task, and the 0% → 2.8% → 35.5% error jump 2:32 — Why peripheral vision matters: attention, UFOV, and the Flanker test 3:32 — The Sports Vision Pyramid (from Eye of the Champion) and where this research sits on it 4:27 — The brain-knee connection: Swanik, Wilkerson, and the 2023 systematic review 5:27 — From the knee to the nervous system: Grooms, Appelbaum, and Onate’s 2015 framework 6:47 — Testing the athlete, not just the movement 7:25 — What this means for your training and rehab 8:09 — The final question: are you testing how you move when the visual pressure feels like the game? In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why “seeing clearly” is only the base of the Sports Vision Pyramid and why sport is usually decided higher up, at the decision and vision-to-action levels. The exact numbers from the 2026 Sports Health study: error rates of 0% (anticipated), 2.8% (unanticipated), and 35.5% (combined cognitive + peripheral-vision load) — and why lower peripheral-vision accuracy specifically predicted the errors. What happens to landing mechanics when an athlete fails under visual-cognitive load: increased knee abduction and reduced joint flexion, the movement signature linked to higher ACL loading. Nearly 20 years of research — Swanik (2007), Wilkerson, and a 2023 systematic review — have built the case that ACL injury risk has a neurocognitive and visual component, not just a strength/biomechanics one. Why Grooms, Appelbaum, and Onate’s 2015 clinical framework argues for making return-to-sport rehab more visually and cognitively “game-realistic,” not just mechanically sound. Practical questions to ask about your own training: does it include realistic visual decisions, and does it hold up as the visual scene gets faster and more complex? Helpful Resources Sports Vision NYC (http://sportsvision.nyc) Connect with Dr. Laby on Instagram (https://instagram.com/sportsvisionnyc) Pick Up a Copy of Eye of the Champion (https://training.sportsvision.nyc/eye-of-the-champion) Download The Ultimate Sports Vision Guide for Athletes [FREE] (https://sportsvision.nyc) Don’t forget to subscribe to Sports Vision Radio so you never miss an episode on the science of peak performance.

3. 

   2 Sept 2026

   Great Athletes Don’t Just See. They Predict

   An athlete’s advantage was never just about sharp eyesight. Two new studies, from very different corners of science, land on the same point Dr. Laby has made throughout his career: performance depends not only on what the eyes detect, but on what the brain selects, stores, and converts into action. The first, a peer-reviewed study out of the University of Pretoria, found that a hard, sport-specific rugby training session produced measurable improvements in visual skills like tracking, vergence, and eye-hand coordination. The second, a preprint from the Dunsmoor Lab at UT Austin, used a non-invasive brain stimulation technique aimed at quieting the amygdala, and instead found it sharpened memory, suggesting the amygdala may act as a filter deciding which faint or ambiguous signals get through to conscious processing. Dr. Laby connects both findings to the Sports Vision Pyramid and to vision as a predictive system, not a passive one. Episode Timestamps 0:00 — Introduction: why “great eyes” is the wrong explanation 0:45 — The one-second decision: a footballer reading a closing defense 1:30 — Study 1 setup: 26 rugby players, a hard sport-specific session 2:30 — Study 1 results: which visual skills improved, and why that matters 3:15 — Study 1 caveats: small sample, no control group, no persistence data 3:45 — Study 2 setup: focused ultrasound targeting the amygdala 4:45 — Study 2 results: quieting the “alarm” sharpened memory 5:35 — Vision as prediction and the Sports Vision Pyramid 6:15 — What this means for coaches and athletes on the field In This Episode You’ll Learn Why “great eyes” almost never explains what’s actually happening when an athlete makes a fast, skilled play How a 60-minute, sport-specific rugby training session produced statistically significant gains in six distinct visual skills Why exercise-driven arousal may temporarily prime the visual and attentional system, and why that finding shouldn’t be oversold What the amygdala’s role as a possible “gatekeeper” of faint or ambiguous signals means for training attention, not just eyesight Why vision in sport works as a predictive system, combining present input with stored experience, not a simple recording of what’s in front of the athlete How the Sports Vision Pyramid explains why 20/20 acuity alone guarantees nothing about decision speed or anticipation Helpful Resources Sports Vision NYC (http://sportsvision.nyc) Connect with Dr. Laby on Instagram (https://instagram.com/sportsvisionnyc) Pick Up a Copy of Eye of the Champion (https://training.sportsvision.nyc/eye-of-the-champion) Download The Ultimate Sports Vision Guide for Athletes [FREE] (https://sportsvision.nyc) Don’t forget to subscribe to Sports Vision Radio so you never miss an episode on the science of peak performance.

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