The impact of strobe visual training on the sports vision abilities of elite clay target shooters

Background: The act of clay target shooting is widely considered to be among the most challenging activities and visual abilities may serve as a limiting factor in shooting performance. Investigating the influence of Stobing visual training on the motor visual ability and special performance of elite clay target shooters. Method: The study involved 26 elite athletes from the Chinese national clay target shooting team (11 males, 15 females), divided into experimental group (n = 13) and control group (n = 13), subjected to eight weeks of general and specialized strobe visual training through experimental methods, utilizing Senaptec testing system to assess the athletes’ motor visual ability, utilizing the result of two qualification races to assess the special performance, analyzing the impact of SVT on the motor visual ability and special performance of clay target shooters. Statistical analysis of the results was performed using Mann-Whitney U rank sum test, independent samples t-test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, or paired samples t-test. Results: There was no statistical difference in any of the sports vision ability indicators between the experimental group and the control group before the intervention (P > 0.05). Post intervention, except for visual clarity, contrast sensitivity, and perception depth (P > 0.05), all other indicators and the result of special performance showed significant differences (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Long-term strobe visual training intervention resulted in improved perceptual and motor visual abilities in clay target shooters, displayed as enhanced indices in target capturing, reaction time, decision mechanisms, hand-eye coordination, distance switching, perceptual range, and multi-target tracking ability software indices combined with the special performance. However, the long-term intervention of strobe visual training didn’t show notable improvement and promotion on visual system hardware indices.