In the latest Beautiful Aim entry, Arton stops in to see a sports-vision specialist. Here's the episode...

What I find interesting is the blurring between seeing and responding; the tests aren't simply diagnosing whether the eyes function in a mechanical sense, in a way that might be tested on a standard eye chart--but how quickly and how accurately the information is getting in and then how quickly and accurately Arton can react to it.

In his comments at the end of the video, Arton mentions that, prior to visiting Black & Lazar's, he'd believed that his reaction time wasn't trainable, and now, having improved it already in one session, he believed that it was. As Lonnie Lowery mentions in this T-muscle article, the legendary strength and conditioning coach Vern Gambetta believes the same thing about athletic speed:  that it, too is a coachable skill.  As the man says, you can't coach seven feet, but if Vern is right, perhaps you can coach 4.3 seconds. 

One of the main draws of strength training to me back in the day was that it's an athletic leveler: it make the weak strong, the small imposing, the meek powerful. And it was democratic: anyone with access to a few rusty barbells and a bench could do it. It gave the lie to the notion that strength and fitness were only the domain of the athletically gifted: given enough time and effort, anyone could get strong and fit (Is it any wonder that immigrants Weider and Schwarzenegger were so drawn bodybuilding, the very apotheosis of American self-made manhood?).

Still, like Arton, I've always believed that certain athletic traits were teachable--like strength and size--and others--like speed and reflexes--were not. The new advances in the sports sciences are getting us closer to being able to build an athlete from the ground up. Which is good news for my six-month-old son. If I start his training soon, I'm thinking starting wide receiver, New England Patriots, circa 2031.