As a kid, I loved playing soccer. It was the only sport at which I excelled, and I found it endlessly enjoyable.
As I got older, my eyesight began to get worse. For a while, playing soccer was not a problem at all. I simply took off my glasses. The fact that I couldn’t see some details properly did not affect my abilities. But my eyesight didn’t stop getting worse for a while. Not until I was left with a negative ten prescription (as well as an astigmatism).
Playing soccer without my glasses on was no longer possible – without tripping over my own feet at least. I broke two pairs of glasses, the second time badly cutting my opponent in the process, before I gave up.
The problem was that I had tried contact lenses. They were uncomfortable, but more importantly, any slight glare from the sun made it almost impossible for me to keep my eyes open.
Fortunately, over the past couple of years I managed to get back into playing soccer. Here’s what I’ve found.
One of the reasons I avoided sports glasses for years was that I assumed they were a terrible waste of money. An extra expensive pair of glasses that happened to have a strap on the back did not appeal to my frugal nature.
However, I decided to try a pair when I was dabbling in a less risky athletic pursuit: running. I could run with my regular glasses on, but they started slipping with a bit of sweat and became a liability.
You can get prescription sports glasses for running at a relatively affordable price. And no, they are not just regular glasses with a strap at the back. They are actually designed to fit closely to your head while giving you as much peripheral vision as possible. This is important, as you need to know what is going on all around you when running on the road. Only when wearing sports glasses did I realize how much I had been missing and how dangerous it was to run with my regular pair.
After a while, I decided to try soccer again for the first time in years. I joined a casual Sunday game, wearing sports glasses I knew to be hardy, as I had already sat on them a couple of times!
Playing soccer with sports glasses brought back my glory days. It didn’t affect my timing either, so luckily I stayed away from epic fails. Also, I could see better than I had in those first years with regular glasses. I didn’t have to worry about them falling off or about going in for tackles.
What’s better is that I got myself a pair of prescription sunglasses for sports, so that the glare wouldn’t bother me either. Running and playing sports is now a comfortable experience, in spite of my negative ten prescription.
A high prescription should not prevent you from engaging in the athletic pursuits you love. With a good pair of sports glasses, you will have the advantage of 20/20 vision back.