The Maximizing Vision Podcast is where sports medicine practitioners come to understand what visual performance really is — and why 20/20 isn't the goal. Hosted by four optometrists who've spent their careers embedded with professional teams, US military programs, and academic medicine, each episode explores the clinical science of dynamic vision, cognitive-motor processing, and the interprofessional work of building peak athletic performance.
If you're an athletic trainer, sports medicine physician, strength coach, sport psychologist, or clinician working with athletes at any level, this show is for you. Drs. Cunningham, Horn, Smithson, and Nanasy — all past chairs of the American Optometric Association's Sports Vision leadership — bring rigorous science, real clinical stories, and honest conversation about what practitioners need to know.
Because vision isn't just what athletes see. It's what they do with what they see.
For educational purposes for sports medicine practitioners. Not clinical advice for individual patients.
Episode 1 - Is the Sun In Your Eyes?
Athletes competing in the 2026 FIFA World Cup faced sun conditions that shaped ball tracking, decision-making, and injury risk in ways that most people watching never noticed. Goalkeepers squinting into afternoon glare. Wingers losing crossed balls in low-angle light. Referees adjusting positioning to preserve their sightlines. Defenders misjudging distances under high-UV conditions. In the inaugural episode of The Maximizing Vision Podcast, the four founders of Sports Vision Pros sit down for a Roundtable conversation about the ways solar conditions affect visual performance — and what sports medicine practitioners, athletic trainers, coaches, and sports vision specialists can do to help athletes manage them.
Episode #2 - The Vision Science Behind the World Cup Ball
In this episode of the Maximizing Vision Podcast, the Sports Vision Pros team dives into the design of the FIFA World Cup match ball and the vision science that makes it work for elite athletes.
Whether you're a sports medicine team member, athlete, coach, or eye care provider working with athletes, this episode gives you a new way to look at the equipment on the field — literally.
Episode #3 - Rethinking Vision for Sports Physicals
In this episode of the Sports Vision Pros Maximizing Vision Podcast, Dr. Derek Cunningham and Dr. Fraser Horn, optometrists, discuss what pre-participation physicals (or sports physicals) can—and can’t—tell athletes about their vision. They explain why checking each eye separately matters, how standard eye charts can miss the demands of sport, and what eye movements, peripheral awareness, contrast sensitivity and concussion history may contribute to a screening.
The conversation also explores sport-specific vision correction, practical challenges in screening athletes, and how emerging technology may help assess vision in dynamic conditions. A useful listen for athletes, parents, coaches and eye-care professionals interested in sports vision and performance.