The brockstring is one of my go-to vision training tools to help improve performance, reduce pain and improve posture.

Ever notice we have two eyes, yet see one object? Pretty cool right?

The brockstring, helps interrupt the dominant eye and thus increasing the activation of the suppressed eye. Many of us are walking around only utilizing one eye, thus making it really challenging on ourselves to reach goals, perform better or manage our pain.

When we operate only utilizing one eye, we may start to notice the following:

1. Increase in pain

2. Increase in one-sided pain

3. Poor movement

4. Postural deviations (For instance, if we see best with one eye, it makes sense that our body will orient itself so that we see the world via the dominant eye. You’ll typically see this express itself in rotation).

5. Increase in excess tone/tension

In the video below you’ll see me utilize the brockstring in a squat. My goal this morning was to squat, however I noticed my left lower back feeling excessively tight (note, please do not ignore pain. “Pain” is an action signal, it’s your brain telling you to do something). My left lower back is typically the area that signals pain, when something (stress management, vision, sleep, nutrition) is “off”.

When I ran through a series of assessments (forward bend and general body scan assessment), I noticed I felt “off”. My forward bend was much tighter than normal and my body felt more “achy” or “chatty”. Sure enough, as soon as I stepped up to the brockstring, I felt a ton of strain and noticed “ghosting” (flickering of one of the strings- this is an indicator that your eyes are struggling to work together, also known as dominance and suppression).

I spent a few sets, focusing on each bead on the string. As I trained my eyes, I noticed an improvement in how easy my squats felt. There was less “fight” and tension as I lowered.

Why?

We have two eyes for a reason. It provides our brain with information of how essentially “safe” we are in our environment. Solely relying on using just one eye, impacts our ability to migrate through the world with ease, confidence and yes, pain free. When we learn to utilize them together we provide our brain with more useful feedback, there’s less strain, less push back and more ease from the environment. When we see from both eyes, we reduce the chances of compensatory patterns (weight shift, hip shifts, over activation on one side etc.)

I also attached a great video by Dr. Cobb of Z-health Performance elaborating on sensory mismatch.