About this Podcast:
The Maximizing Vision Podcast is where sports medicine practitioners come to understand what visual performance really is — and how it transforms what's possible on the field, court, ice, course, and more. Static visual acuity, the metric behind the familiar 20/20 measurement, tells you what an athlete can see when standing still and reading an eye chart. It's a necessary baseline. But athletic performance depends on something more complex: dynamic visual integration. The ability to track a fastball at 95 miles per hour. To read a defender's body language before they've committed to a route. To process peripheral information under fatigue. To integrate visual input with motor output in milliseconds. These are the skills that separate good athletes from elite ones. They can be measured. They can be trained. And they touch every part of the sports medicine team's work — from concussion recovery to strength conditioning, from sport psychology to return-to-play protocols. Each episode brings clinical science, real-world stories, and honest interprofessional conversation into focus. The show explores the visual demands of specific sports, the emerging research on cognitive-motor processing, the assessment tools that work in clinics and on sidelines, injury triage and return-to-play frameworks, and the collaborative work of maximizing vision as one part of maximizing athletic performance. Hosted by four past chairs of the American Optometric Association's Sports Vision leadership: Dr. Derek Cunningham, OD, FAAO — Vision consultant to the professional, collegiate, and US military programs. Dr. Fraser Horn, OD, FAAO — Former Dean of Pacific University, Past President of ASCO, and consultant to the teams and players in the NBA, NFL, MLS, WHL, NASCAR, collegiate and industry. Dr. Keith Smithson, OD — Director of Visual Performance for the Washington Nationals and Commanders. Team optometrist for the Washington Wizards, Mystics, Spirit, and DC United. Visual performance consultant for the Washington Capitals. Dr. Amanda Nanasy, OD — Consultant to the Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers, Inter Miami CF, UCF, and Barry University athletics. Made for the team behind the athlete: athletic trainers, sports medicine physicians, strength and conditioning coaches, sport psychologists, physical therapists, sports nutritionists, sports vision optometrists, and every practitioner shaping athletic performance from the sideline, the training room, and the clinic. 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. Content addressing injury assessment, triage, return-to-play decisions, and clinical management does not substitute for direct examination of an individual patient by qualified providers.
