How can mental imagery help?
It helps in many ways such as:
- Preparing you for unexpected sitautions that might occur during competitions. Your mind would already 'know' how to react in such difficult situations(eg hostile crowd, tough opponent etc)
- Relaxing your muscles. This could be before, during and after the event. Always remember that the mind control the body so whatever you can visualize, you can actualize, including physical stuff such as muscle relaxation.
What gives an athlete a competitive edge is the use of their psyche, and skills such as mental imagery. Many of the world’s best athletes are reporting using/have used mental imagery(such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Lee Haney etc) to improve their performance and enable them to tap in to their potential. It has been proven that the implementation of mental imagery into training and competition increases performance. In fact, research has shown that imagining a muscle movement in the mind stimulates electrical activity in the muscle without actually moving it. Therefore, when an athlete imagines an aspect of their performance (skills, strategies, etc), they are making gains both mentally and physically, without actually physically exerting themselves!
So what exactly is mental imagery?
Mental imagery is imagining yourself performing exactly the way you want to. It is a mental preparation on your intended physical performance.
Last year, I worked with a student athlete who was preparing for a major age group hockey tournament. This was her first major competition and she was feeling very nervous. So I worked with her for about 6 sessions (about an hour each time), guiding her in mental imagery and relaxation techniques. And it worked really well for her. She appeared tremedously calm during the entire tournament, showed great leadership skills to her fellow teammates and emerged as one of the top scorers of the competition even though she was not considered one of the top players at that point in time. I was nt surprised at her accomplishments as I have used mental imagery for my own sports performances as well. When I was competing in the National arm wrestling contests, I used lots of mental imagery, even more than my physical training! And I am sure that it had contributed a great deal in me winning the two titles and coming runner up in one!
So, mental imagery is a great way to give you that little extra against your competitors. I would be discussing more of mental imagery in my other posts. In the meanwhile, should you have any questions, please feel free to email me at bodypulse@ymail.com. Have a great week!
