With a high interest in outdoor sport hobbies, such as fishing, mountain biking, hiking, golfing, skating, and kayaking, there has been an increase in demand for active-wear sunglasses. These sunglasses are specifically designed to fit light and comfortably on your face and withstand impact and extreme conditions.

Wearing the right sunglasses can make all the different in your performance, and we’ll take a look into the frames and lenses that will be most beneficial to your game.

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Lens types

The type of lens you wear is extremely important when it comes to sport and performance sunglasses. Their optical quality and visual enhancement properties play a major role in amplifying your field of vision. Some sunglass manufacturers offer a variety of tints that will benefit the wearer based on the sport they play. The tinted lenses modify light to enhance your vision when viewing specific objects. For instance, a tennis player may wear a certain tinted colored lens that will allow them to see the yellow tennis ball more prominently than they would when wearing a basic sunglass lens. This allows the tennis player to have a quicker reaction time.

The best lens choice for the majority of sport sunglasses are Polycarbonate lenses. Polycarbonate lenses are stronger, more lightweight, and have a higher resistance to impacts compared to lenses made of other types of materials. Polarized lenses are also popular among those who participate in outdoor activities, because they reduce the glare of the sun off of surfaces such as a field or snow. Those who are active in water activities also benefit from polarized sunglasses, because they can navigate the water more efficiently without seeing the glare reflecting off the water. There is a bit of debate when it comes to wearing polarized lenses for snowboarding or skiing. Sometimes seeing the glare off icy patches is beneficial to those moving high speed down the slopes.

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Frame Types

When it comes to sports and performance activities, functionality is crucial to the athlete. Most frame styles are aerodynamic and sleek, with no slip grip on the ends of the frames and nose grips to keep the frames in place as you move. The majority of frames are made of lightweight and durable materials. Polyamide is a common material used for sports and performance frames, and has the highest resistance of all textile raw materials.

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Unique to the Sport

Each sport is played differently, so the visual requirements for sports differ as well. This has led to the development of sport-specific sunglasses. A variety of frames and lenses are targeted specifically to individual sports, such as baseball, boating, golf, tennis, and hunting. Lens tints play a major role in sport-specific sunglasses. For example: A hunter may be able to easily see a bird flying in overcast conditions, because the lens may provide more contrast to the hunter’s vision. Golfers could also benefit from a lens tint that enhances the details of grass patches which may slow down their put. If you play a variety of sports, certain brands provide multipurpose sports sunglasses that include interchangeable lenses with tints to use based on the type of sport you are playing or lighting conditions for that particular day.