From a preliminary study, we observed that high-level fencers suffered as much disruption to the posture regulation by the port of a fencing mask as a controlled population who had never practiced this sporting activity. The orthoptic balances revealed significant disorders with the mask around the visual field for the whole group and the convergent fusional capacities for 95% of them. Porting a mask increased the oscillation surface of the center of pressure in standing standardized station. Fencing developed neuromuscular coordination, especially between the eye and the hand. Reactions are linked to the speed of processing the visual information: the eye precedes the gesture (Berthoz and Petit, 2006). In motion, the eyes anticipate the movement of the feet by 300 ms. During a dynamic activity, it is the vision that initiates and guides the movement. To watch, you have to move the eyes and look in the same direction. This is why Roll et al. (1991) indicates that every musculoskeletal muscle is also oculomotor insofar as it mobilizes the eyes in its environment at the same time as the realized movement. Oculomotor activity is predominant but it is subject to the quality of the visual apparatus, the accommodation action is associated with the efforts of the oculomotor muscles (Ridel et al., 2004). Extra-ocular signals related to the angle of vergence would also be involved in the control of postural oscillations, and particularly anteroposterior oscillations (Lê, 2008). Thus, the central nervous system would use vision coupled with the oculomotor signals of convergence to reduce anteroposterior oscillations. It is known that coupling oculomotor and neck muscles is strongly involved in postural control (Corneil et al., 2004). The eye and the cervical spine work according to a reflex activity through the vestibule in order to maintain a stable eye (Bove et al., 2009). The coordination between the eye and the hand brought many studies over the years. During discrete punching motion carried out as quickly and precisely as possible, the eye begins to move towards the target before the departure of the hand. The eye reaches the target the hand has stopped moving (Robitaille, 2012). Based on these observations, we considered working on the oculomotor system in order to try reducing the disturbance of the fencing mask on the postural regulation and improvement a specific gesture of fencing, the lunge. Our hypothesis was that a specific orthoptic exercise performed through the disturbing element, the mask, could significantly improve some stabilizing parameters and optimizes the precision of the lunge in fencing.
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