The Science of Performance-Enhancing Sports Sunglasses

Are you wearing the right sunglasses for your sport or just a stylish accessory with no real performance benefit? 

In sports, the right gear can make a significant difference in performance. 

Many companies offer eyewear for specific sports, but upon closer inspection, you'll find that these sunglasses often share the same tints and frame designs as those marketed for other sports. 

What makes a sunglass sport-specific and performance-enhancing?

In this article, we dive deep into the world of performance-enhancing, sport-specific sunglasses. 

We'll explore why sports-specific sunglasses should be considered vital sports equipment rather than just a fashion statement. 

What Is A True Performance Enhancing Sports Specific Sunglass?

Numerous factors make sunglasses a sport-specific performance-enhancing product.

• A sports-specific performance-enhancing sunglass needs to be regarded as a piece of sports equipment and not necessarily a sunglass for general use.
• To design a true performance sunglass, the first question to address is what colors need to be enhanced and what colors need to be bleached out to improve visual performance. By enhancing some colors and bleaching out others, the contrast between the colors is heightened.
• It must be determined if only one tint in the lens will be sufficient to enhance performance or if a gradient tint needs to be utilized.
• Frame design needs to be addressed relative to the requirements of the sport as related to eyewear.

Here Are Examples Of How It Works

• Golf

Sunglasses cannot improve your distance when driving, but half your score is typically dependent on putting. This is where sunglasses can improve your performance.

The ability to read the contour and grain on the greens is a key ingredient in successful putting. The reading of both involves analyzing the shadows and contrast of the grass for both contour and grain. This involves color, and a lens tint can be designed to improve your visual perception of these subtle changes in color intensity on the greens.

Frame design is very important as well. The best golfer can visualize the position of the head of the club on the backswing. This makes peripheral vision very important, and frames must be designed to fit, not to restrict this critical aspect of visual performance for the golfer.

• Tennis And Softball

Tennis and co-ed softball utilize an optic yellow ball. The yellow ball must be brightened and the background bleached to improve performance.

Both sports require looking at both ground level and the sky. If a yellow ball is brightened, the sun will also be brightened. The lens must feature a gradient tint to be a true performance-enhancing tint.

Tennis and softball are very active sports, so sweat and lens fogging must be addressed in frame design. Frames must not fit tight to the face because sweat will run down the front and back lens surfaces, and a lack of proper air movement and ventilation behind the lenses will result in lens fogging. 

• Computer And Gaming

All screens produce blue light, which is the most difficult wavelength for the human eye to focus.

This results in an eye strain peculiar to time on a screen. The most detrimental portion of the blue light spectrum is known as HEV. This portion of blue light is the most stressful to the human eye and can produce altered sleep cycles.

A tint must be designed not just slightly to reduce blue light wavelengths but, most importantly, to filter nearly all the HEV portion of the blue light spectrum. Only a tint that nearly eliminates all the HEV wavelengths is a true performance glass for computer work and gaming.

Frames must be designed for comfort with some wrap-around feature to eliminate blue light from all angles.

Now you get the picture. The tint cannot be the standard gray or brown for them to be sport-specific performance-enhancing sunglasses.

Solar Bat Performance Sunglasses

Solar Bat, owner and optometrist, will design lens tint and frame to improve visual performance and then test those designs for 6-12 months to refine and improve before releasing them for sale to the public.

• FISHING. Solar Bat offers the standard gray and brown, with and without mirror finishes. In addition, Solar Bat offers their proprietary Mossback Green and Hi Contrast Yellow tints. All performance fishing tints are polarized.

• HUNTING. Standard shooting lens tints and proprietary Hi-Visibility Yellow and Green for species specific hunting.

• GOLF. Performance Golf Green for the greenest greens and Performance Golf Brown for the brownish green grass.

• TENNIS and SOFTBALL. Aqua tint to improve visibility of the yellow ball with gray gradient tint in the top 30% of the lens to improve vision when looking upward into the sky.

• DRIVING. Polarized Green to improve contrast and vision, especially when driving in the rain. Solar Bat’s proprietary computer blue-blocking lens tint for driving at night to aid with the oncoming headlights.

• COMPUTER and GAMING. Solar Bat’s proprietary tint will help with all blue light wavelengths but will block nearly all the HEV wavelengths. Great for computers and gaming but also very comfortable for watching “smart” TVs and working under energy-efficient lighting.

• SOLAR ECLIPSE GLASSES. Solar Bat has designed protective eyewear for viewing the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

View and read more about Solar Bat’s truly performance-enhancing sunglasses at www.solarbat.com. Improve your performance and enjoyment of your chosen outdoor sport.