Strobe glasses: how to integrate them into sports training ?

Strobe glasses are increasingly used in sports training to challenge the visual system and brain in a different way. But to fully benefit from this type of training, you need to know how to use them properly. how to properly integrate them into a session.

Should they be worn throughout the entire workout? Which exercises should be prioritized? How often should they be used? Here are some simple principles.

Why use stroboscopic glasses during training?

When an athlete performs a classic exercise, their brain constantly has the visual information necessary to analyze their environment and adjust their movements.

Strobe glasses temporarily alter this situation.

They alternate between phases of visibility and occultation. The athlete therefore receives less visual information and must anticipate more what will happen between two phases of visibility.

The goal is not simply to make the exercise more difficult. It is to to require the processing of visual information, anticipation and coordination between perception and movement.

Start with a simple exercise

One of the mistakes is wanting to immediately perform complex exercises with the glasses.

It is generally best to start with a task that has already been mastered:

• receiving and throwing a ball;
• passes with a partner;
• simple movements;
• eye-hand coordination exercises;
• ball handling or control depending on the sport played.

The athlete can first perform the exercise normally, then repeat exactly the same exercise with the stroboscopic glasses.

This allows the visual constraint to be introduced gradually without simultaneously changing all the other variables of the exercise.

Gradually increase the difficulty

Stroboscopic training must remain progressive.

Once the athlete is comfortable, several parameters can be modified: the speed of the exercise, the trajectory of the ball, the distance, the number of stimuli or even the level of stroboscopy.

The goal is to create sufficient difficulty to engage the perceptual-cognitive system. without making the exercise impossible to perform.

It is precisely to allow this progression that the AnceFlex® glasses offer different settings and levels of stimulation.

Alternate between wearing and not wearing glasses

An interesting protocol involves comparing several phases during the same session:

1. Exercise without glasses
The athlete performs the task normally.

2. Exercise with stroboscopic glasses
The same task is repeated with intermittent visual information.

3. Return without glasses
The athlete performs the exercise again under normal visual conditions.

This alternation allows one to work under constraints while maintaining a direct link with the real conditions of sporting practice.

In which sports can they be used?

The principle can be adapted to many disciplines.

In ball and racket sports, training can particularly involve anticipating trajectories and eye-hand coordination.

In football, it can be incorporated into passing, control or information-gathering drills.

For goalkeepers, it can be associated with certain receiving, movement and reaction drills.

In combat sports, the focus is more on reading movements and reacting to rapid stimuli.

However, each discipline requires exercises adapted to its own constraints.

A few minutes may be enough.

Stroboscopic glasses are not intended to be worn for an entire session.

They constitute a complementary tool which can be integrated into certain specific training sequences.

The quality of the exercise, its progression and its regularity are more important than prolonged use.

Training perception to complement physical training

Athletic performance does not depend solely on strength, speed, or technique.

Before each movement, the brain must perceive information, interpret it, make a decision, and then trigger a motor response.

Stroboscopic training allows a specific constraint to be added to this perception-decision-action chain.

It is with this in mind that AnceFlex® technologies were developed: complement physical and technical training with targeted work on visual and cognitive abilities.

Discover the AnceFlex® stroboscopic glasses on www.anceflex.com