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074 - Sports Vision Training with Dr. Riyad Khamis
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Virtual Sports Vision Program (use code NORTH for $50 off): https://highperformancevision.thinkific.com/products/courses/sports-vision-training-hockey-goalies
This week, we were lucky enough to have Dr. Riyad Khamis of the London Vision Development Centre to talk about the importance of sports vision training and what it means for goalies. We discuss what goalies can do at home and how limiting screen time can help propel performance.
Dr. Khamis Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highperformancevision/
20/Happy Careers Podcast ft. Dr. Fred Cho and Dr. Riyad Khamis: https://pod.link/1830874043
London Vision Development Centre Website: https://londonvisiondevelopment.com/
Check out what we have to offer at https://truenorthgoaltending.com
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the DIY Goalie podcast where hosts and goalie coaches Nathan Park and Connor Munday share their insights on how to become ah better goalie.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hey goalies, welcome back to the DIY Goalie podcast presented by True North Goaltending as always with your hosts Nathan Park and Connor
Guest Introduction: Dr. Riyad Kamas
00:00:28
Speaker
Munday.
00:00:28
Speaker
And today we actually have our first guest in a few weeks. um We've got Dr. Riyad Kamas with us from the London Vision Development. and He works with the London Knights as well as the Edmonton Oil Kings, kind of providing some sports vision training with them.
The Role of Sports Vision in Goaltending
00:00:47
Speaker
ah So we brought him on today to kind of talk a lot about some of that sports vision stuff, because as we've mentioned before on the podcast, it's a very important part of being a goalie, being able to track and process visually and all of that stuff. So we figured that we'd get an expert on to talk about some of the stuff that you guys can do at home and kind of some of the important talking points on that. So we're very excited to have Dr. Kamis on with us. Thank you for joining us. And how are you today?
00:01:21
Speaker
I'm great. Yeah, thank you for having me. Goaltending is a passion of mine and i definitely love to talk talk hockey, especially I'm excited to to chat with you guys about it. Yeah, for sure.
00:01:34
Speaker
um So why don't we hop right into it today? And why don't you kind of give us a little bit of an introduction on yourself, kind of a background, like maybe how you started getting involved with hockey and and kind of why you wanted to go that route and all of that stuff.
Dr. Kamas's Journey into Sports Vision
00:01:53
Speaker
For sure, yeah. So it's actually one of, so I'm an optometrist by trade. So an eye doctor, friend most people know that. But I, um so in, actually, when I was in third year of undergrad, I was trying to decide where I wanted to go with with career. I wanted to do an optometry, always drew, was always interested because of the business side of it, the healthcare side of it. like But anyways, one of the main contributors to me deciding that route was actually I was big NFL fan and I'm a hockey, I grew up playing hockey, but i think NFL was my first love watching it from a young age. and actually
00:02:28
Speaker
Larry Fitzgerald, i came across an article where he did sports vision training, and I'd never heard of it. I was just applying to optometry school, and he credits, all his uncle was a sports vision optometrist, so he credited a lot of his success to training his eyes and his sports and doing sports vision from a young age. So that kind of got me hooked, and and I decided, you know, I'm going to apply to optometry school because I didn't even know this was an area that I could potentially specialize in.
00:02:53
Speaker
ah which I was really excited about. And then I was a little disappointed because really no one taught sports vision. Even I went to school at the University of Waterloo Optometry School and they barely touched on the sports side or how the eyes and the brain process and the quickness and the reaction stuff. So I um yeah. So after I finished school, I decided I did a residency. So I went down to Oklahoma, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, which I still have no idea where it is on the map. It's somewhere down south in the States. We were there for a year and I really got to learn more about the sports vision side of it and how the eye brain connection and all of that stuff.
00:03:32
Speaker
and So then yeah i came back to London, Ontario, where I grew up about two hours north of here northwest of here and set up a practice. And the sports start side started pretty slow. We were doing a lot more brain injuries, kids with reading issues, ADHD, like teaching them how to read. and and rehabbing and then slowly kind of hockey goalies started to roll in so we got one or two hockey goalies coming in and then we got a few more and then the uh goalie coach london knights at the time which was darren mcchesney reached out and yeah we started chatting and we set up a program with the london knights uh to get their goalies to come through our office we were five minutes away and then
00:04:16
Speaker
initially it was interesting and and I don't know what you guys think about this, but my, um, my goal was to really try to come up with a way to help evaluate goaltenders.
Evaluating Goalies with Vision Metrics
00:04:26
Speaker
I don't know if what you guys feel about that, but there just seemed like there's a way to evaluate goaltenders in terms of watching them, watching their technique, but it really depends on the team they're playing for, or how good the defense is in front of them. And there's a lot of, and a lot of variables.
00:04:42
Speaker
Um, so So for me, it was like, what if we can take these goaltenders and measure objective results, like reaction speed, how good their tracking actually is, how good their peripheral awareness is, and put it into a score and give them a score and be able to compare the goalies. So let's say I saw five of the Knights goalies or junior goalies, being able to rank them based on this system. And I don't think anything like that really exists, even in, I have a couple goalies that went to um kind of the nfl NHL combine, and there was really nothing along those routes that actually properly did it.
00:05:19
Speaker
um So yeah, we started doing that, actually. That was where it started, was I was able to kind of rank their goalies, being able to tell like which prospects I felt had good potential. Vision isn't obviously the be-all end-all, but it's it's another data point.
00:05:31
Speaker
um Yeah, so it started with that. And then eventually it was like, okay, well, we know all this stuff about these goalies. So why don't we help to actually train them because they wanted to work with me to to actually get better. And yeah, so led to that, which eventually led to the Oil Kings because we spent um my wife's families in Edmonton. So we ended up spending a lot of time in Edmonton and I got Matt Curt Hill there. And yeah, that's how that that started there as well.
Vision Training for Goalies
00:05:55
Speaker
So since the game of hockey, especially goaltending, sorry, kids having like an episode here. am might have to jetto I might have to jet away for a second. um So since the game of hockey and specifically with goaltending, it's highly visual. You know, we talk so much about tracking and head trajectory with the puck.
00:06:16
Speaker
um do you think that the cognitive the visual training are, for lack a better term, basically the same thing or that they kind of just go hand in hand that you can that you can just kind of conglomerate it together under one roof or do you or do you think that there is enough of a difference between the two that it would be better to treat them both as two separate entities I'm going to jump out I'm going to go see what's going on look forward to the answer when I listen to this on the laughter
00:06:51
Speaker
um That's a great question. and And I think that one of the things that people, the misconception about vision training is we have muscles that control our eyes and there's extraocular muscles. And sometimes you hear that if we can make those muscles really strong, we'll get really fast. And that's not really that true. And usually that's said by people who don't quite understand how the visual system works.
00:07:14
Speaker
ah Your eye muscles are your fastest muscle in the body. No matter how much you train, how fast you are, how quick of a runner you are, your eye muscles are always going to be faster than any other muscle in your body. They're directly connected to your brain.
00:07:27
Speaker
So they're going to be very fast. So we already have something that's really fast. The thing we can train, and this is vision training, and that's why it's a pretty much the same as cognitive training in in certain aspects is what we can train is training the brain on how to use those eyes effectively and efficiently. And that's really like our program.
00:07:47
Speaker
That's what we aim to do with goalies. I want goalies who finish the program with me to know how to use their eyes better than every other person on the ice. And, um, like a quick analogy on that is if you or if you guys watch F1 racing or NASCAR racing, right, your eyes are that Ferrari or the Red Bull car, whatever you like, right? They're super fast, but the driver, which is your brain has to learn how to control that. And that's how, where you're going to finish your, how good of a kind of a team you're going to be in.
00:08:18
Speaker
That's no different than the eyes and the brain is vision training is training the brain on how to use the eyes effectively, efficiently, and to the next level where even whether you're 14 years old, whether you're in the NHL, it's something we can definitely train.
00:08:34
Speaker
Awesome. Um, taking a quick step back, just out of curiosity, when you talk about, um, evaluating the goalies based off of these skills, um, the teams you work with, do they take that into account for actually evaluating their goalies? Like if they're going to take them on the team or not, or is it just kind of another like data point that they use?
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a great question. So with our evaluations, what we do is we provide it to the goalie coaches and the GM and they we let them use it as they want there. and And what I find is, it's another data point probably for them to use. Typically, it does correlate like if we're finding a goalie has slow reaction speed or a slow glove hand or a low blockers pretty slow, it usually tends to correlate with what the coaches or the team sees as well, or that's where they get beaten.
00:09:26
Speaker
um Because as you said, the eyes play such a huge role on goaltending. So Definitely does tend to correlate and sometimes it it may help them or it may not, but they, but they definitely, we definitely have the conversation. So yeah, for sure.
00:09:40
Speaker
So when you guys do training sessions, then um do you basically run through the same stuff with goalies and with players or does it kind of differ between the two?
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, I customize it. So with me, i break it down to working on critical visual skills important for goaltending, which do tend to overlap with some of the players, but it's definitely different as well. And then through the through the season, I'll customize it as well. And that's why typically I'll try to watch every game of the team I work with. So for instance, last year um with the London Knights, you know, we were seeing maybe like a goaltender was having a little bit of problem with his glove hand or from when the puck was behind the net and it was centered out front, he wasn't quick enough to react. So we would design specific drills for that week to work on that specific visual skill, um whether it's that two glances you take to check where things are in space and really making sure we're taking into account a lot on those glances ah just to make that a little more effective. So yeah, we'll definitely customize it to the goalie and in the off season we'll have
00:10:46
Speaker
a six or seven or eight session plan where we're hit and during the season we'll customize it more to performance if we can.
The Importance of Peripheral Awareness
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah. So what we're saying is Dr. Kamis is responsible for Austin Elliott's record breaking season. not But but yeah but now Austin and Alexi both were really great kids and and I really enjoyed working with them. get to still work with Alexi, which is, which is awesome.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's good. and Do you kind of keep in contact with ah all the players you work with as they move along and and all of that? Yeah, it's one of the neat things about the goaltending things that I work with is a lot of the goalies come back. And I and i know that's one of the reasons I know it's I'm passionate about it. I know it's helping is a lot of the goalies in the offseason will travel back to work with me or will work with them in the offseason. So Yeah, definitely. We keep in touch with a lot of the goalies. Um, it was really Alexi this year was his draft year, which was a really cool. We definitely kept in touch and I, and I had some conversations about the combine and, and just a little bit about like the draft day and actually had a couple teams call me as well. Some NHL teams, uh, like asking about a little bit about the vision side of some of the goalies as well. So yeah, it's, it's, it's cool. And it's a, you make these relationships and I'm sure you guys experience it too, is once you have goalies, they tend to be pretty,
00:12:09
Speaker
pretty loyal or they want to really come back to you to learn to learn as well in the future. Yeah, we yeah we see that lots. And that's kind of the coolest part about being involved in the hockey world and and especially the goaltending world, since it's so small, you kind of really develop those relationships. And yeah, it's cool to see where they get to over the years, too.
00:12:29
Speaker
For sure. and So what do you think is kind of the most important visual skill um for goalies to have? Yeah, this is probably one of my favorite questions because there's a lot of misconceptions out there. and And I think that most goalies, I ask this question to most goalies or goalie coaches or people who work with goalies. And I think that, and I'll give you a pause a second to think about your answers, but I won't put you on the spot. But um majority of the answers I'll get is tracking.
00:12:58
Speaker
I think that's the number one thing everyone says. And and really, like tracking is definitely important. But at a certain and there's two types of tracking. There's pursuits, which means like when you follow along something very slowly and there's something called saccades, which is eye jumps when you're jumping from one area to another. You're doing that a ton of time during the game.
00:13:18
Speaker
But most goalies I find, like especially the goalies that we work with, because a lot of times when people are seeing me, they're they're definitely more serious about goaltending. So they're going to be your higher level goalies, like we do see younger goalies like 11 12 13 but typically most them are good at tracking right they wouldn't be at the level they're playing if there were bad trackers right now there's exceptions that sometimes we get like hitches in their tracking or they make a couple and extra motions when they're jumping but majority of times they're pretty pretty good so actually the most important and the critical skill for for goaltending is some is peripheral awareness and peripheral awareness and spatial awareness and
00:13:57
Speaker
The reason why that forms the basis of the visual system, your peripheral vision is your anchor to to your visual system. So if you don't have good peripheral vision, you're going to be a really bad, you're not going good at tracking. Even when you catch a ball, if you're, if you're going into this tunnel vision and you're, or a puck and you're just focused on it, you're going to be slower and your reaction time is going to be slower. And a good example is if you like were to think about like putting,
00:14:23
Speaker
like a tunnel in front of your eyes, right? If you put two hands in front of your eyes and then you were trying to go from one spot to the other, you're going be really slow. But if you already know with your peripheral vision where you're going, you're much quicker. And one of the one of the and I know you didn't ask this question, but one of the things that a lot of people are doing these days is training on apps. And and you guys are probably aware of that. There's a bunch of different apps.
00:14:43
Speaker
The problem I have with apps, and this is is, we don't train peripheral vision, right? Like think about the last time you had, or you saw a kid, like a 12, 10 year old kid on an iPad and you stood beside them, right? You probably didn't even notice you were there for a few minutes.
00:14:58
Speaker
So all a sudden we're doing eye training, but without peripheral awareness, which is the most critical part of eye training. so In fact, a lot of the apps, like as technology gets better, it's actually making some of these goalies vision worse. And I see that with even some pro goalies I work with and their eyes are not working very well. And it's because they've been training on just a screen for so long. So yeah, it's, we just kind of have to look away from our screen, look away from our phone and look around the world be or look around because like our peripheral vision is such a critical visual skill.
00:15:31
Speaker
Just before Connor hops in with this next question, what do you think of vr then?
VR and Apps in Vision Training
00:15:38
Speaker
Like the sense arena and stuff like that. Yeah, for sure. So they're all tools ah that you can use that have pros, but they shouldn't be your sole training device. like they're all like, they're all different training devices that you integrate into your training plan. And and VR, I think, from what I've heard with goalies is mixed things like you don't get the feel or the touch or anything like that. So it doesn't quite simulate actually playing goalie. So your best way to become better at playing goalies playing goal, right, like facing shots, but ah we try to simulate it. and And it's good for like some goalies, I had a couple goalies who had hip surgery. And
00:16:13
Speaker
They weren't allowed on the ice for a while, so at least it gets them that feeling that they're back on, they're nowhere to look. But I always tell them too, and I get that question a lot, is it's a training tool, so you can integrate it with your vision training, but it's not the sole thing you want to use. there Fair enough. So now that I'm back in the swing of things, um i got I got a bank and a couple of questions here. So kind of building on top of that, and the the like visual edge has been kind of the top or one of the one of the newer um tools, for lack a better term, when it comes to the goalie space in terms of training.
00:16:51
Speaker
do you like, like, have you kind of experimented with it at all? as like Or is it kind of the same answer with the, you know, the sensorina as a tool, limited dosage, or do you think that there's a real benefit yeah with visual edge? I mean, not that we're trying to knock on them or anything, right? Right. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's just, it's one of those things that, you know, we see get promoted a lot yeah lately. So just what were, what are, were your thoughts on it?
00:17:19
Speaker
it's a great it's yeah and and i don't want to cause any controversy here or anything like that but but yeah exactly what you said like when we look at the science behind it it's a tool is it the most effective tool like i've seen not great like i've seen had an example of goalies who i had a goalie who used it and had to take a nap every time he used it because he was seeing double vision and uh and the problem is it's an app right so there's no one telling you if you're doing it properly or you're not doing it properly and And a good example, is so there's a study in optometry and this this stuff like the visual edge, all the VR stuff, like probably hasn't properly been studied too much with like proper scientific studies. But like there is ah there' is a good scientific study on something called convergence insufficiency. And basically what that means is ah when you're tracking a puck in or when you're watching something come in, whether it's sometimes people went into double vision and have it happens when you have a concussion or reading issues. Anyway, so
00:18:15
Speaker
To correct that, they did three different things. One group people did pencil push-ups, which means they took a pencil and brought it to their nose like thousands of times. That was the least effective because that's not that fun and doesn't really help that much.
00:18:26
Speaker
Second group of people did app training, like computer-based training, and they got improvement, but it wasn't like super significant. the the team The people that got it properly were the ones that actually did in-office vision training with real paper, real devices, things like that, and it kind of blew the rest of the water. so blew the rest out of the water. And thats that one is a gold standard study that we've used forever in optometry. And I and i do relay that back to the apps is there's a lot of screen. So kids these days, right? Like when you think about kids from age 10 to 16, right? now On average, we're spending about six to eight hours on a screen or a device.
00:19:03
Speaker
So just in general, that's drying out. Kids never used to have dry eyes, right? And now all a sudden, kids are coming in and seeing us and they all have dry eyes. My athletes, a lot of them are using artificial tears between periods because their eyes are dry, um which never used to be the case before. And the reason being is we blink three times less when we look at a device, we get screen fatigue.
00:19:24
Speaker
So we're training our eyes on a screen. Yeah, i don't i don't I use it as a tool, but I definitely say if that's you're the only thing you're doing, then definitely it may be beneficial than not doing nothing, but there's definitely more beneficial things out there. and
00:19:43
Speaker
So then kind of jumping back a bit, then when we talked about kind of most important things or visual skills for goalies to have, and we kind of touched on it already with just kind of the the the peripheral vision versus tunnel vision.
00:20:00
Speaker
Do you think for goalies in particular, that would be kind of the top biggest struggle that goalies have when it comes to visual processing? For sure. Yeah, i we have a way of testing awareness on goalies. and And these are junior goalies typically, so pretty high level goalies. And I would say that one is the one they struggle with the most. And that's pretty consistent across the board is ah they haven't really been because it's not something they've learned how to properly do a lot of times is kind of look and peripheral awareness, like people think about like peripheral focus and really trying to like catch with their peripheral vision. We never want to do that because
00:20:37
Speaker
Our peripheral vision isn't good at catching. You can't tell if you try to catch with your peripheral vision. That's when you see like those red line shots go in because that your peripheral vision isn't meant to track. So you need to track with your eyes. But knowing where everything is in space, right? When you have a two on one, knowing kind of where things are or even just and knowing roughly where you are compared to your your net. Those are all important skills that I'm seeing like a lot of the legal tenders don't have as much.
00:21:04
Speaker
um even up to like the and NHL level. So that's kind of the the area I would say for sure is is one where we we like to focus on. Do you see issues lots with multi-object tracking?
00:21:19
Speaker
yeah that goes so Yeah, that goes along with it. that's multi-object tracking is ah like being aware of your peripheral vision. Now, there's more devices and more training things on that for sure.
00:21:30
Speaker
um So that that goes along with kind of being able to sort where things are with your peripheral vision and being peripherally aware. And We tend to, when we get into pressure situations, so if you think of like the third period over time, that's when our brain wants to go into tunnel vision. And that's when the peripheral vision becomes even way more important because the goalies that can be calm and just be be, have their nice, quick, soft eyes with their peripheral vision open tend to be the goalies that are the ones that they're the quote unquote clutch goalies at the end of the game.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, fair enough. um So what are some of the things then to look out for um in terms of like symptoms or performance or anything like that um to try and find if there is an issue with a goalie's visual processing?
Visual Processing Issues in Goalies
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, so the first part of any evaluation is making sure the eyes are seeing well. And that's kind of where we separate like the processing and the training and the neuro stuff from the vision part of it. Because just from a baseline standpoint, right, like if you're not seeing well, then you're probably not stopping the puck. And a lot of goalies, like even even some of the goalies that I see at a high level, like, sometimes they're not seeing well, like,
00:22:49
Speaker
If you've heard of the term 20-20 vision, that's what us most of the time we aim for, which 2020 is considered normal vision. But goalies we want better than 2020. We want about 20-15.
00:23:00
Speaker
ah So that means they could stand five feet further than the average person and see the same thing. So ideally that's that's step one is we want them to see 20-15. And that can include maybe putting them in contact lenses,
00:23:12
Speaker
ah maybe updating their prescription or or whatever, or maybe they already see it, which is great. um Then we want to make sure that they're, and this is different than a regular eye exam because it is more of a goalie specific. An eye exam is a lot of these screening tools and just making sure your eyes are healthy from your regular optometrist, where a sports vision eval is a little more in-depth on the critical skills needed. So The next thing is double vision is a lot of times what we talked about is the most common one I see because if a goalies had a concussion, and this happens sometimes with the junior goalies is they've had a brain injury before and they've never quite healed from it.
00:23:52
Speaker
So what happens is their eyes going to double really fast, like if something comes towards their nose, they're seeing double and if any goalie is listening, If you're ever like do a reading late at night, or if you're ever kind of reading and the words start to jumble up or they start to look like they're double or you've seen double before, then you might have convergence insufficiency.
00:24:12
Speaker
That makes rebound control really difficult, right? If you're tracking a puck in and your eyes go into double, you're not going to be able to control that rebound no matter how much you practice it. So that would be another one. um So that's something we can briefly test for. Depth perception is another one we can test for in the office, make sure goalies are seeing 3D that they're how they they're using both their eyes together. We're not using just one eye and losing depth and and things like that. And then eye fatigue, we can test, make sure they're focusing good. they're not Eyes aren't fatiguing and all of that stuff there. So that'll all be like tested.
00:24:46
Speaker
and based on that, we can first iron those out because before you jump into any cognitive, any vision training, if there's a deficiency in those then your performance is going to be not going to be as good as it should be and then we can now work on okay so now everything's back at baseline and and i'll tell you like probably 80 of the goalies i see have a deficiency in one of those things no matter if they're 11 years old, 12 years old, they're their first pick of their junior team, typically there's something we need to just quickly iron out there.
00:25:17
Speaker
And then now we can jump into the actual training of let's get you faster, let's get you reacting better, let's get you tracking better and processing information faster.
00:25:29
Speaker
I'm dealing with eye fatigue right now. new Newborn keeping me up every hours. Yeah, sleep is very important. Eyes are games are not going too well. Hey, Connor? how about No, haven't started that yet, but yeah that is definitely coming in soon.
00:25:48
Speaker
um so then what or are there rather any he exercises that goalies can do at home to improve improve the visual processing we've already kind of touched on visual edge and vr sense arena stuff there so we'll just kind of take that out of the equation what would be just kind of some at home exercises that you can do Yeah, so I think just doing ah playing sports is important just from a visual a development standpoint. One of the sports that I really enjoy and actually I play with some of the goalies that come in to see me is table tennis is ping pong is really good at developing your hand eye coordination, tracking, you're doing all the visual skills really fast. So I would say like playing other sports like that is important to help develop that part of it.
00:26:38
Speaker
um We do, I can touch on this later, but we do have like a training course that we've released now where it's actual like paper charts, real piece of equipment, things that people can, goalies can do at home as well. And we talk through it, but they're able to train their their eyes at home.
00:26:53
Speaker
But in general, just trying to be like, get off, try to get off the device for a little bit of time and really just like go outside, maybe play catch, like really work on the tracking and just throwing balls against the wall, juggling all of that stuff there ah to really develop those like motor skills using like real objects and keeping your peripheral vision open while you're doing it.
00:27:14
Speaker
Okay. What do you think of concentration grids?
00:27:22
Speaker
ah Yeah, concentration grids. I think those are those are great. Do you guys do you guys have a lot of goalies using those or? Yeah, so dry land with our camps. and i think a Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
Okay, I just explained concentration grids to me because I don't know if I'm super familiar with them ah They're like a jumbled like 10 by 10 grid where it's like the numbers zero to 99 are randomly placed out and you have to start by crossing off zero and then one and then two all the way to 99.
00:27:53
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's working on a lot of different skills, right? You're working on tracking, you're working on memory processing, picking objects out of a busy environment. So yeah, that that would be it like a concentration and focus, right? Like, it's hard these days to stay focused, because there's just so much, so many distractions, things like that. So that's really important for goaltenders who have to focus for of the whole period type of thing there as well. Yeah, so no.
00:28:20
Speaker
and And I would encourage like, those, I don't know if you guys do them on screens or their paper or or where they are. But sometimes I know it's probably easier on screens, but even doing those on paper can sometimes help with the screen fatigue and kind of kind of maybe trying to eliminate that a little bit as well.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah, we usually have them printed off. So our yeah our cognitive training provider, they do them pretty much every time. Okay, nice. With their goalies. so and So what does like kind of a development plan look like for visual training then? like How frequent should you be?
00:28:56
Speaker
you know doing these kind of at home exercises versus going in to see somebody and like what's kind of the natural progression i know it'll probably vary with each individual but just kind of a general overview as to what you're looking for when you're developing these athletes with their uh their visual processing Yeah, so so really like the goal of any training, and and this is sometimes gets lost, I think, with all the technology and all the devices, but it's simple, right? You want to become a better goaltender. So whatever you do, or whatever training you're doing, don't want to lose sight of that is whatever I'm doing has to be your time is limited. As a goaltender, you have specific time to train.
00:29:37
Speaker
um So everything you do to has to be effective, and it has to get you to the point where it's going to make you a better goalie. So the The one thing I say is during the offseason, we definitely hit it more. So I'll see a bunch of goalies come in during the offseason and depending on their level and how how much they're trying to improve will will vary. Like it might be weekly. a lot of goalies I did weekly this year just because...
00:30:01
Speaker
They really wanted to get in weekly and really felt like they they wanted to make sure that they're getting to the next level. um Some goalies during the season, i usually with these teams, they'll usually do monthly sessions just because they're so busy, like with practices, games, things like that as well.
00:30:16
Speaker
um And then in terms of developing a plan is we, for me, how I do it, and this is pretty custom to, because i there wasn't really for me, I developed a lot of this stuff myself by just working with goalies and seeing what worked and what didn't work. So what I do is I usually come up I have a plan in the off season that goes, it takes about eight or nine sessions and we can go more than that because we can hit each visual skill a little bit more if we need to, but we hit, we try to hit every single visual skill. So we start with peripheral awareness.
00:30:48
Speaker
Then we have tracking, tracking and traffic because that's a different skill is being able to track track when there's a bunch of stuff going on there for you. ah Then we work on rebound control and convergence and then focusing And then some of the processing stuff, like visual memory being a big one is, as we talked about, like a lot of times goalies will do glances, but they won't really remember what they're seeing. And they're kind of doing it because their goalie coach told them to do it. And so trying to remember what they saw or or at at higher levels, um they watch tape, right? They watch tape on power plays. They watch kind of the the team's opposing teams like strategy a little bit. So being able to remember and recall that in the processing standpoint is important.
00:31:31
Speaker
um Some of the stuff you guys talked about, like when there's a bunch of numbers and they're trying to track or multi-object tracking or focusing, we'll do a session on that. And then what I'll also do, and this is different for me, is I'll come up with a ah pregame warmup. So most goaltenders have, and this is a warmup of, and typically is what I find is like a ball juggling routine. So they'll do like whatever, they'll get to the arena early, they'll do their stretches, they may have like a 10, 15 minute ball warmup.
00:32:00
Speaker
which is great. So we don't change the ball warmup because that warms up their motor coordination. But I'll add a 15 minute vision warmup to every single goalie that comes to see me. And it's a little kit they get and they just carry it to the ice and they get to do their, their kind of warmups there. And it's nice now because we've worked with so many goalies, they'll recognize other goalies doing it. They'll be oh, that's the one that you got from there. And, uh,
00:32:23
Speaker
And I actually just had a goalie text me yesterday, a junior goalie. And he said that like his eyes had never felt, he did it. We went over it. And he said, he just never felt so dialed in like watching, travel like seeing through traffic, like everything. He was a goalie that, um,
00:32:38
Speaker
there's There's really two types of goalies I find. You guys might find this as well. right There's goalies that take a while to get into a game. ah Those are your goalies where like maybe the first couple shots, ah things like that, you're a little more iffy about that. right and Or maybe you're like a little nervous about that because they take a little bit of time to get into a game. Or goalies who may fatigue by the end of games.
00:32:58
Speaker
So based on whichever goalie i see, um so he was a goalie that took a while to get into the games. Like I could tell, like right off the bat in a session, he would kind of be dropping things. He wouldn't be great. And then by halfway in, he's just super dialed. And I was like, okay, we need to get there right away. So we gave him a longer vision warmup.
00:33:16
Speaker
Other goalies, I had one that fatigued really quickly. So we did a shorter warmup. So based on that, we come up with a little bit of a vision warmup for goalies as well.
00:33:26
Speaker
we allowed to kind of and get an insight as to how that looks or is that proprietary it's' it's nothing like super complicated we're just like hitting every vision skill and and really like if they're they're pretty basic like things they are and if the goalie has to understand why they're doing it and that's the biggest thing is like if you tell a goalie to do something and they don't know why they're doing it or like you don't teach them, that's why I don't really do the vision warmup right away. it usually takes like three or four sessions because they have to understand like what tracking is, what cicades are, what pursuits are and realize why they're warming up that specific visual skill.
00:34:05
Speaker
Then it becomes way more effective because then they're like, okay, this is what I need to do for this warmup. So yeah, it's basically something we've come up with and we try to hit like six or seven different visual skills and it varies for each goal type of thing.
00:34:18
Speaker
Okay, so I'm going to tell you a story here, Riyad. Yes. So throughout majority of my playing career, i had glasses, refused to wear them under the mask just because it was uncomfortable and it would fog up.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah. um After his playing career coach with them, nothing really wrong there. And then decided that I was one to get in policing. And so had to go get LASIK to go that.
00:34:47
Speaker
So went for LASIK and they could tell that I was stressed out about it. And so they gave me these um stress balls to kind of, kind of help me kind of convey some of the, some of some of the, some of the stress and they were eyeball stress balls.
00:35:02
Speaker
yeah and just so you can you So you can imagine how messed up I was already. And then all of a sudden now I have these eyeball stress balls. And what made it even worse is that I am squeezing the ball of the eye that they're working on.
00:35:17
Speaker
yeah So that leads me into my question. Um, Do you have any recommended? We know that there are some goalies um out there that will um have some kind of eye deficiency um of some sort, which would require them to wear glasses at a younger age.
00:35:37
Speaker
um some of them will wear their glasses under the mask some of them will have like those sports glasses that they wear under the mask what are what would be your recommendations for goalies who do have to wear some kind of eyewear um to comfort to to comfortably have it under their mask and if they do decide to wear like their regular glasses like nathan's wearing as an example to make sure that like they don't fog up as they're yeah Yeah, that's a great question and also a great story. ah Yeah, I can just picture you there just being stressed out about that, right?
00:36:09
Speaker
Luckily, Lasik's a pretty quick kind of thing, right? it was it was ah it was It was the first major surgery that I've ever had in life. Yes, yes, yes. Of course, like doing stuff like around my face, it was not fun.
00:36:20
Speaker
Well, um my wife was very similar. She was super stressed about laser surgery and put it off for the longest time and I knew the surgeon. So we finally went in to do it.
00:36:31
Speaker
And the surgeon invited me in and I was just like hanging out beside him. And she's like, I'm like casually having a conversation with him and she's like freaking out. And then he does it and it's like she lifts up and literally he's like, okay, picture time. And we're all take a picture like right after. And she was not happy with that. um But yes, getting back to your question. So I would say, um so yes, glasses fog up.
00:36:54
Speaker
Like it's it's tough. It's one of those things that glass fog. Now there are anti, t this is a COVID thing actually, because that became an issue all across the world is we're wearing masks. And yeah, you probably noticed that when you had your glasses on is,
00:37:06
Speaker
They're fogging up. So they actually have come up with anti-fatigue or anti-fog wipes that work really, really well now. So we actually carry some in our office. You could probably find them at most optometry clinics or or pharmacies.
00:37:18
Speaker
But you basically just ah it's just a wipe that you wipe the glasses with and beforehand. And they actually tend to do pretty well with the anti-fog. The technology's gotten much better since COVID on that.
00:37:28
Speaker
um So that's option one. Now option two is the sports goggles, as you said, like kind of having something more tight fitted. And that's a lot of times, at least with with glasses, you have the risk of them falling off if there's like a shot you take to the mask or something, or like probably less of a risk, but potentially shattering. So you just want to be careful with that. So the sports goggles at least protect against that part of it. And then contacts are probably the majority of the goaltenders that I see is wearing contact lenses,
00:37:58
Speaker
Depending on their prescription, sometimes we can get them in, but daily contacts are better. um so if you think about like monthly contacts, think about like sweating in them every single practice and then putting them away and then putting them back in your eyes.
00:38:10
Speaker
um It's almost like when you eat your dinner plate and you don't clean it and then you eat a dinner from that plate again for a month straight because a lot of the kids aren't great at cleaning there and not super healthy, right? Puts you at a risk of bacterial infection. So daily contacts if possible and that way you can just throw them out after as well.
00:38:29
Speaker
I was the ah biweekly ones that I was bad for stretching them to like three weeks at a time. Yeah, the biweekly ones really made no sense because no one actually wore them for biweekly. They would all stretch them for a month. So it was just kind of a thing that they had, but yeah, it didn't make much sense.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah. And once I got used to wearing contacts, I was bad. I'd wear them like as soon as I got up till as soon as I went to bed. Yeah. They'd be nice for like 14 hours and don't do what I do, kids.
00:39:00
Speaker
So lot of things, by the way. Yeah. No line pictures. Well, i'll I'll tell you a story of like one of my first goalies that I had come in um was actually ah she played at the in what age she was but she played boys hockey she was really really good at goaltending but she was finding like her eyes would fatigue by the end of like the third period and she'd never worn glasses she'd been seeing the optometrist her parents were really good at every year of all that stuff she actually had a prescription in her eyes that she could mask by focusing around it but because she was focusing so much during a game it was really tiring her eyes out so this was actually one of my first
00:39:38
Speaker
goalies that came in so we put her in contact lenses like plus one contact lenses and all of a sudden like it just made a massive difference like she said like her eyes felt so fresh everything looked really really fast and and uh she wrote like a thing saying like this kind of changed my goaltending and she ended up she's just playing division one hockey now in the states somewhere so um yeah it's really it's sometimes you can even do contacts for people who don't actually necessarily know they need them yeah Well, I'll give you my little don't do as I do contact story before we get into this next question.
00:40:14
Speaker
ah I had a game once that in warm up, I don't know what happened, but my contact came loose and it actually like bunched up like kind of in the side or like, yeah and you know, almost like behind my eyelid and I couldn't get it and it was getting close to start of the first period. So me being the stupid 18 year old or whatever I was at the time, I just threw in a second contact. okay So don't do that goalies. If you have contact issues, figure it out.
00:40:47
Speaker
And if if you need to not start that game because of it, it it'll be fine in the long run. That was not a fun game. I did not play well. My eye hurt for like two days after that.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, that being said, what are some general things goalies or just people in general can do to improve or maintain their proper eye health aside from not putting two contacts into their eyes at
Eye Health and Avoiding Burnout
00:41:14
Speaker
once? Yeah. yeah And just another story of a contact lenses. I remember one of my first years working with a junior team.
00:41:20
Speaker
and One of the goalies was struggling and and hadn't had his contact lens prescription updated. So he was only really one eye was really blurry and he wasn't quite using that eye. And the goalie, we would watch him at the beginning of the season and we were letting in some goals that we shouldn't let in and he got new contacts and I got a text from i think it was goalie coach of the GM that day being like ah watching him play they're like he got his new contacts didn't he and I was like yes he just picked them up today he's like yeah can tell he's just seeing it so much better so it's such a minor thing that can make a huge difference
00:41:52
Speaker
Um, where so, um, in terms of eye health, yes. So question about eye health. So one of the biggest things is dry eyes. I think that's taking over because with the thing about dry, and dry eyes, and you guys may have experienced is most people at some point in their life have experienced some sort of dry eyes where the eyes are burning.
00:42:09
Speaker
Uh, but what happens is it's almost like your window, your cornea frosts over. So you start to see blurry. and you start to see for that moment things start to become hazy and no matter how good your vision is things are going to appear more blurry and everything like that for you these days it's impossible as we said like eight hours a day on a screen we're all on screens so um trying to take breaks from the screen there's something called the 20 20 20 rule so every 20 minutes try to take a 20 second break and look 20 feet in the distance look away from your screen allows you to blink a bunch, ah allows you to kind of make sure you maintain good eye health.
00:42:43
Speaker
If your eyes feel dry using artificial tears, but don not using Visine, that's kind of a lot of people's go to Visine makes your eyes worse. That's like optometry's pet peeve there. So it just rebound causes rebound redness. So use like a preservative free natural artificial tear if you're going to use dry eye drops.
00:43:04
Speaker
ah Try to limit screen time. Like the world is becoming nearsighted. Most of kids these days are going to be, in fact, I think it's at 50% now and it's, their number's rising. 50 to 60% of kids are going to be nearsighted because our whole life is up close now. So glasses, every other person's going to have glasses now basically is going to be the thing So trying to be limit that like your best option is if you can balance being outside, especially when you're younger, with as much screen time, that's usually a good recipe, like go to the park, look in the distance, it helps with like eye development there a little bit there.
00:43:40
Speaker
um So those are kind of a couple couple tips just from an eye health standpoint. um And yeah, those would be kind of the major ones. And if you do notice an eye problem, make sure you are getting your regular eye exams. I know in Ontario, i don't I think it's similar in Alberta, but kids are covered every year for an eye exam up until they turn 20.
00:43:59
Speaker
twenty So yeah, it's it's no and there's no cost you. So at least get your eyes checked, make sure they're healthy there as well. Yeah. No. Let's chat a little bit briefly here about your podcast that you have, which talks about finding joy in one's career.
00:44:18
Speaker
um What advice do you have for goalies to try and avoid burnout while pursuing their career in hockey? Yeah, so this is ah this is important, I think, and it and it correlates. So the podcast is more for healthcare care workers, but it does correlate in one way, because what we find is healthcare workers are at the point where, and and you guys probably...
00:44:44
Speaker
know a lot of people or have family or someone in the healthcare care business, but the burnout rate is pretty high because they're seeing whatever their family doctors, their nurses, they're seeing 30 people, they're kind of just it's the same sort of thing across the board there as well. And, and really, like, for me,
00:45:00
Speaker
ah being able to intertwine like a passion with sports or goaltending with my career has been a game changer for me like that's been something that i'm super excited about i get to work with a lot of goalies i got work with a lot athletes so um burnout in general can happen in every profession um so i don't think it's just for healthcare workers as you said like goaltenders experience it as well now The difference being is most goaltenders or people who work in the goalie industry have found a passion. And and most most of the time, if you're goaltender, you're pretty passionate about goaltending. Or if you're working in the goalie industry, you're coaching goaltenders, you're running camps, you're pretty passionate about optometry. So you found your passion, which is which is super important.
00:45:43
Speaker
Um, but there's still some things where you can get burnt out pretty quickly. And I think from our podcast, the three biggest things that I've found that help prevent burnout or prevent that is one is finding your passion, which most goaltenders have already done that, which is great. Two is learning, right? Like there's this thing where after seven years of doing whatever you've done, you hit a point where you're not quite learning as much because you've pretty much mastered what you've done.
00:46:11
Speaker
right you've done it for so long you can do it kind of without thinking about it and it's pretty automatic and that's the point where you start to enjoy it a little bit less so i think learning is really important and and for goaltenders that means learning new techniques maybe we're doing what you're learning about vision training or sports vision training or different um aspects of cognitive training or mental performance right like really learning on that And then three, making a difference, right? Everyone wants to make a difference and everyone wants to be able to help people. and And so I think that's important is doing something where you feel like you're helping or, and that can be for whatever, right? When healthcare, care that can be helping people and with their vision or or or on that or in goaltending, like helping goalies get better and really find like watching them develop.
00:46:57
Speaker
um so So really kind of knowing the aspect of helping people is important, I would say. Yeah. And we'll, we'll put a link to the podcast in the show notes. If you guys kind of search up 20 slash happy podcast, if I have that correct. Yes, that is correct. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:16
Speaker
So we'll put that in the show notes, but yeah, if you guys are interested in checking that out, I think you guys are four five episodes. yeah We have, we have a bunch recorded. We're slowly getting them out. So yeah, it says we get to talk to a lot of interesting people, which, which we enjoy as well. So yeah.
00:47:33
Speaker
Yeah. And that's kind of why we like doing ours to learn a lot from the people we have on. But just before we let you go here, um when we talk about like because a lot of people don't think about life after hockey as much, um especially those that get to a pretty high level um that kind of becomes, you know, their sense of identity, their sense
Post-Career Passion for Goalies
00:47:59
Speaker
of worth. So just building off of what you guys are doing talking about and doing with your podcast do you have any advice for goalies and just players in general um on kind of some things they can do to help find something that they enjoy after hockey or kind of be able to find that new sense of worth or sense of purpose and something that's different than what we they've been doing for the last you know 10 15 20 years whatever the case may be for sure so that's a good question i've got and i've had the um
00:48:33
Speaker
privilege of working with a lot of goaltenders now that were pretty high level or played in the and NHL and now are into coaching. So um really, like, I guess the big thing is finding what you, pay your pet the goaltenders are really driven. That's one thing I've learned about goalies is most of them are because you wouldn't be a good goaltender if you weren't Someone who is a passionate about it be put in a lot of hours and a lot of work doing something that most people probably wouldn't do like going in front of a rubber puck. And so you have a lot of like motivation. And and so taking that which is really important in all aspects of life. I think being motivated, working hard can be applied to any so anything there. So taking that and really putting it towards something that you're passionate about. I know that becomes coaching for a lot goaltenders because they get to kind of work with kids and see see ah see them develop. But it may not be. It may be something else as well. But really taking what you've learned and the skills, because you've learned a lot of skills growing up as a goaltender. You've learned...
00:49:34
Speaker
ah you've been more motivated and driven than most people. So using that and and finding your passion and really kind of tailoring it towards that. I've seen a lot of goaltenders become successful based on that. Even like the goalies that I see as junior goalies. And I always think like they don't make it. They would be great. Like they would, whatever they do, they they would just be great at it because they're so like compared to the average 15 year old, they're so much more like driven and and really kind of focused and everything like that.
00:50:03
Speaker
Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. So no, go ahead, Nathan. Oh, I was just going to say what you're going to say, probably and be like, we very much appreciate you taking the time to and come on with us and to kind of share your insights and all that stuff.
00:50:21
Speaker
um If people are interested in learning more or, um you know, have questions for you or anything like that, where can they find you and kind of what do you have going on on your end of things?
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah, so well, it's exciting time. So we got the training camp starting, as we said, for a lot of the teams that will be heading out to a few training camps, starting to get the goalies coming through now. and In terms of we've actually released this is a recent thing. So have we have released a sports vision training program.
00:50:50
Speaker
that anyone can access. I've had a lot of goalies reach out to me from different provinces. And so I just had a goalie from Vancouver ah reach out and one from Florida. So we actually so what I did was my sports vision training that I do with all the junior goalies in the teams, I basically recorded each session.
00:51:08
Speaker
and put it into a training plan. And we actually ship the goalies an actual vision training kit. So it has all the stuff you need to actually do a proper vision training program.
00:51:19
Speaker
ah It includes the paper charts, little piece of equipment, all of that stuff that we would do in the office as well. And they're all evidence-based optometry techniques. And they log on to the course and it actually runs them through the program there as well. So they'll be doing one session on peripheral awareness, like we talked about, and They just set it up, they do it, they do it for the week or the month, and then they hit the next session. And it's a good like six to 12 month program that they can do throughout the season. It also runs them through a vision warmup like we talked about. So a vision warmup they can take to the ice.
00:51:51
Speaker
ah So you can find that on if you go. So you can find us on Instagram or on me on Instagram at High Performance Vision. And you can find the course on the Linktree account at there.
00:52:03
Speaker
um And yeah, if you want to reach out via email, or if you have questions, we can put my email in the in the show notes there as well. And people can always reach out as well on that part. Yeah, we'll link up everything in the show notes of this pod.
00:52:18
Speaker
It should all be over at True North Goaltending now slash pod 074 or however Nathan does websites nowadays. So we'll. Oh, and and we can do a little bit. I was going to do a little promo code with um with you guys as well. So if you like enter the promo code north, um you get some I think you get like $50 off the the the course and things like that as well. So yeah, if anyone wants to utilize that, they can do that.
00:52:43
Speaker
I'll put it in the show notes, but I'll give you the, i think the the promo code is North right now. Okay. Perfect. Well, there you go. Goalies. Make sure jump on top of that. It's going to great opportunity for you guys, especially with the upcoming season around the corner, as we start to enter into evaluations on our side of things.
00:53:02
Speaker
And we'll go at it from there. Gentlemen, anything else to add here before we sign off?
00:53:09
Speaker
No, just a big thank you on our part. Yeah, no, I really enjoyed it. And it's, ah I would say like the goaltending in Edmonton is very promising. I get to kind of speak with a lot of goalies down there and definitely the goaltending down there is at another level, I would say.
00:53:25
Speaker
Well, definitely let us know when you're in town and appreciate we'll we'll we'll meet up together here together to to get together with all that. Anyways, that is another edition in the books of the DIY Goalie Podcast presented by true North Goaltending.com.
00:53:41
Speaker
ah You can follow us on your favorite social media platforms, all at True North Goaltending, except on Instagram because we like to be different. That one is Y-E-G Goalie Coach. If you're watching over on the YouTube side of things, make sure you hit that like and subscribe button and hit the share button as well across all your favorite social media platforms.
00:53:59
Speaker
On the podcast side of things, if you are listening on your favorite podcast platform, whether be Apple, iHeart, or Spotify, If you're a new listener or a new viewer, make sure you hit that subscribe and follow button.
00:54:11
Speaker
If you are a returning listener or viewer, thank you. We have been at this for 74 episodes, which is crazy. But Nathan and I are definitely very, very thankful for all the love and support.
00:54:24
Speaker
that we have there so make sure you do hit that share button and share it across your favorite social media platforms because the more goaltenders that we can bring together the better uh you can follow myself on instagram at monday gc go check us out at trunosgoaltending.com if you do happen to be in the edmonton area and want to book a session with us we do have our facility bookings readily available for you guys um and like we said as well we are entering into evaluations right now so Myself and Nathan and a few other of our instructors will be busy.
00:54:54
Speaker
On behalf of myself and Nathan Park and Riyad Kamis, this has been the True North Note. This has been the DIY Goalie Podcast presented by True North Goaltending. Make some saves goalies. We'll see you guys next time.