Bismarck, ND -
Every athlete is looking for an edge to make them better.
Mike Salwei at Healthways is bringing something new to the table to help athletes see their future in a whole new light.
Ryan Faragher is a former Bismarck Bobcat, now he's a Division I hockey goalie at St Cloud State. For him, quickness, agility, and focus are everything.
Ryan Faragher- St Cloud State Goalie, Former Bobcat: ten minutes a day you can't really complain about that you do it before or after your workout it really doesn't take much time at all to see a big difference.
Tia Streeter- KX Sports: Faragher is seeing a difference not in his strength, but in his vision. He and several other athletes, including Bismarck High goalie Bret Malkmus, are working out their eyes at Healthways in South Bismarck, he's part of a new vision training program, meant to make athletes reaction times, much faster.
Ryan Faragher-St Cloud State Goalie, Former Bobcat: Helps with making eyes a lot faster, with the training we have the sciatic nerves in your eyes the more you train them the faster they'll get that'll just help the goalie in my situation we're always trying to find the edge and we're always looking for in sports
Mike Salwei-Healthways Manager, Head Trainer: we're in the early stages the experimentation with it but so far it's been going really well, we try to get everything we possibly can to the kids that's going to improve their overall ability.
Tia Streeter-KX Sports: The program is currently working in three steps, vertical eye movement, horizontal eye movement, and near-far object placement.
Mike Salwei-Healthways Manager, Head Trainer: main part of the program they're training this month is vertical sciatic eye movement and horizontal eye movement so that the athlete keeps his head still and he trains the muscles that move his eye back and forth or up and down...we can strengthen those muscles, as they track the ball or play a sport those muscles moving they're more efficient.
Tia Streeter-KX Sports: The changes have been immediate, they've only been training for a month, but Salwei says reactions times are several seconds faster. The athletes have also implemented goggles which impede sight, for just quick flashes, to almost complete darkness.
Ryan Faragher-St. Cloud State Goalie, Former Bobcat: I can use those glasses for 1 or 2 minutes and I can juggle faster than ever before and it's really neat to see how good my eyes have become in a month of training
Bret Malkmus-BHS Goalie: I've noticed quite a bit I pay attention more with my eyes, whenever I go to catch something I feel like I'm able to see an object better than I have been.
Salwei and Healthways have been working with Valley Sports Vision in Grand Forks to create the program.
Salwei says he hopes to implement the vision training into his regular programs soon.
