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A hot topic this offseason in pro ball and the college game has been the use of Virtual Reality (VR) in improving hitting efficiency.  Like all the new technology products and science-based innovations, VR comes with its proponents and critics. No one would argue that training and practicing in real and actual space and reality is the best environment to prepare.  When 90 mph sinkers and unhittable splitters aren’t available before a game or in the preseason, is the virtual environment a place to improve performance?
 

The issues still being addressed by players and organizations as the virtual environment and performance gain questions are asked are time allocation, costs, transferability and potential health risks.

Once you begin discussing neurons, the hippocampus region of the brain, dopamine and space, the baseball world can sometimes get skirmish. However, having spent the last two months learning from, and interviewing experts in the neuroscience world and getting their insight regarding VR and video occlusion training has been an eye-opening experience. The lineup of experts weighing in on VR training  were impressive:

• UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Dr. Mayank Mehta
• University of Kentucky Physiology Professor Dr. Les Anderson
• Retired US Navy Captain and Blue Angel Flight Instructor, Jansen Buckner
• Inventor, Implicit Learning Expert and founder of the V-Flex Hitting System and V-Flex Technologies, Tim Nicely

Dr. Les Anderson acknowledged there has not been enough research on the impact of VR on athletic training and added some of his own questions.

“What is not apparent is whether VR mimics reality or does VR use different/unique pathways within the brain? Some data suggests separate pathways, perhaps indicating that VR will not positively impact the ability of the brain to perceive and interpret two environments similarly,” Anderson said.

Anderson was emphatic in needing “unbiased peer review publications to determine if VR was close to replicating the billions of photons and billions of neurons dedicated to the space existing within the actual visual system of the human brain.”

By Tony Abbatine on January 15, 2020

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