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For Bristol-based optometrist Amar Shah, sports vision is, above its other rewards, a means of marketing his practice.
He explains that sports vision is a marketing tool and you have to use it the best way you can. One of the main benefits of an association with professional sportsmen is that it adds credibility to the public's perception of a business. 'It's a great way of reinforcing the quality of work we do,' he says.
The walls of Shah's consulting room feature signed football, rugby and cricket shirts of the various teams he's worked with while a cricket bat signed by Gloucestershire County Cricket Club's team leans against the wall. He claims that this provides a talking point with patients and jokes that it's also useful for keeping them in line.
Speaking of the promotional value to his practice of his association with numerous professional sportsmen and teams, including Gloucestershire, Shah says: 'The public like to be associated with people who are successful.'
Media coverage
While he estimates that only 5-10 per cent of his income derives directly from his work with professional or amateur sportsmen and selling sports-related product, Shah says that the publicity his practice receives through his sports vision work helps enhance its reputation, while bringing him patients.
His interest in sports vision began while he was a partner in another Bristol practice. Looking for ways to niche market the business, Shah felt that sports vision presented an excellent opportunity to receive media coverage.
A promotional opportunity arose after he was contacted by Nick Atkins several years before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, while the now BCLA president was clinical support manager at Bausch & Lomb. Atkins needed somebody to help him with the sports vision assessment of the British Olympic team and contacted Shah, knowing that he was a sports enthusiast. Together the pair performed screenings on the entire team at a pre-Olympic training camp at Florida State University.
The experience gave Shah data to work from so that he could develop sports vision techniques and on his return to England he and Atkins performed further screenings on other sportsmen such as the England and Bath rugby teams and a premiership football club.
'For me it was a great PR story as we'd just opened a new business and I was looking at a way of getting us into the newspapers so people would recognise us. The headquarters were in Bath and the biggest thing in Bath is Bath rugby,' explains Shah.
'We screened them pre-season. At that time the Bath first team squad was about 40 players. We tested hand to eye co-ordination, foot to eye co-ordination, visual fields and refraction.'
Kicking and catching
Shah adds that in convincing the Bath team of the benefits of sports vision, he always talks to the players and the physios. 'If you can get a coach to buy into sports vision, then you can get to the players, if the coaches don't buy into it, you can't get to the players.
'Jon Callard was the kicking coach at Bath and he was still playing at the time. He wore contact lenses, so he was interested in the visual aspect of sports and he bought into it.'
Revealing his work with the team, Shah explains: 'If there was an uncorrected correction then we went from there. It was early days and we probably didn't really know too much about what we were doing, we just knew that if you could see better, you probably could kick and catch better.'
Seeming sceptical about some claims made about the proof that sports vision improves sportsmen's performance, he says: 'You have to be up front with people. You can't guarantee a team you're going to improve their performance by 10 per cent or tell an athlete you're going to knock a second off his 100 metre time because where's the proof?
'You have to tell them anecdotally that if they can see better, they're likely to perform better.'
This approach to sports vision is appreciated by Jon Lewis, Gloucestershire's captain who is quoted on Shah's website. 'It's a simple game really, but it relies on seeing the ball clearly to start with, and that's what Amar helps us with.'
Despite understanding the PR benefits of working with professional sportsmen, Shah is a firm believer in charging for his time with them 'as the clubs have to have some value on it'. He adds that: 'If you just do it for free, sportsmen and clubs don't place any value on what you do.'
Shah makes an exception for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club with whom he has worked for a number of years. 'The club has bought into me, they have a good deal of trust in what I do and they value what we do together. The deal I have is that I don't charge the club, but they give me free advertising.' As well as an advertising board on the boundary of the club's ground, there is a plaque by the team changing rooms reading 'Amar Shah authorised optometrist for GCC'.
'We get an awful lot of publicity off that. It attracts patients, as they associate us with the players and as long as they're doing well it works for us. However, in general I would always charge and in the early days with Gloucestershire I did used to charge them.'
Juggling skills
With Gloucestershire, as well as certain players from Somerset, Shah performs corrections 'and quite a lot of vision therapy, trying to improve their hand-eye co-ordination and their visual performance.
'Last season we taught every player to juggle as it's a great way to improve hand to eye co-ordination, especially for those players who field close to the batsmen.'
Asked about the materials he uses in practising sports vision, Shah says that he often uses a Brock String for improving convergence. 'It's a simple tool and I can carry it with me when I go to see the team, they don't come to my practice.'
He divulges that he is contemplating buying a sports vision training board, 'but it's £4,000 and you have to make it pay. I haven't worked out if I can make it pay, as people would have to come here.'
Although Shah feels that sports vision can have a dramatic effect on a business, he warns against optometrists who lack a genuine interest in sport using sports vision to promote their practice. 'Sports vision isn't for everybody as if you don't understand the sport you can look a bit foolish. Athletes can see when you don't understand their sport.'