|
The Power of Mental Imagery
Introduction to Mental Imagery
There are
many different training techniques available for athletes who are
interested in improving their skills; and indeed many of these methods
are very successful in providing the desired results. Really, any
training technique that has been certified as safe and effective will
work, but almost any technique will still require a lot of effort on the
part of the athlete to produce results. Training in sports is not an
easy task, nor are the athletes at the top of their sport there by mere
luck. They might have some natural talent, but the vast majority of them
are also very hard workers that have trained hard in the past and
continue to train hard to keep their high level of skill sets intact.
Mental
imagery is just one of the many techniques used in sports training and
has been used successfully by many professional athletes in order to
help them get certain things under control and ultimately better improve
their performances. The idea of mental imagery is one that has been
around for a very long time in sports and sports training, but one that
only now are athletes starting to incorporate into their training
programs. Imagery is founded on the well known psychological thought
processes of 'conceive, believe and achieve.' It is intended to
help an athlete both conceive of being able to do something as well as
believing that they can do that very same thing. One of the more
interesting things about imagery is that many athletes have actually
reported it helping them in their overall performance and the positive
results they have gotten from it means that they are going to continue
doing it in their workouts.
Types of Imagery
There are
five different types of imagery, all of which are going to be used to
help you as an athlete to develop your skills either in a general sense
or to focus them on a very specific sense.
Motivational Specific Imagery (MS Imagery): It is where you
visualize yourself either exceeding your expectations at an event or
outright winning it. It can be crossing the finish line first at the
race you're about to run or scoring the winning goal in your hockey game
or anything else that might apply directly to you.
Motivational General Mastery Imagery (MG-M Imagery): In this
technique you see yourself overcoming adversity in some way and ending
up being successful in the end through your ability to face challenges
and beat them.
Motivational General Arousal Imagery (MG-A Imagery): This is
where you visualize lots of positive thoughts and emotions in relation
to some kind of sports event, it does not have to be a specific one that
is coming up for you. Thinking of yourself as being elated going into
the competition or feeling great that you are spending your life as an
athlete are both examples of MG-A imagery.
Cognitive Specific Imagery (CS Imagery) is where you picture
yourself doing certain movements within your sport. A hockey player
might see themselves taking a slapshot, a golf player a putt, etc.
Cognitive General Imagery (CG Imagery): In CG Imagery you visualize
general strategy and tactics involved in your sport such as a field
placement in cricket or a cross-court passing strategy in basketball.
Techniques
Mental
imagery is usually applicable in the timeframe leading up to an event
and this is what separates it from other imagery techniques. The best
way to go about doing it is to incorporate a short visualization
timeframe that helps your focus, both physically and emotionally.
One of the
most basic ways to train yourself to do mental imagery effectively is to
actually sit down and write out a scene as you want it to happen. For
example, if your scene is scoring the winning goal in a hockey game,
then actually sit down and write out what happens in the scene. Describe
the fans and how they were acting, the atmosphere within the arena and
generally be as detailed as possible about the scene. Once that is done,
read the scene aloud a few times to get it and then read it silently to
yourself a few more times to absorb the knowledge. Then sit back, close
your eyes, relax and try to imagine the scene in your mind in as much
vivid realism as possible.
Another
good example would be to start by clearing your mind and breathing
heavily in and out to establish your physicality. Then imagining a
recent success in your mind (which should be clear of all other thoughts
if you have accomplished the first step in this sequence). This will
establish your emotionality, finally ending off by visualizing yourself
getting off to a great start in this upcoming competition will end off
the training by establishing your focus.
Advantages of Imagery
MS imagery
has the possibility to boost the motivation of an athlete and make them
work harder as well as be more responsible about setting goals and
working towards them.
MG-M
imagery has helped athletes increase their self-confidence level as well
as assisting them in developing positive attitudes that can ultimately
aid them in becoming more successful at their chosen sport.
MG-A
imagery has been employed by professional sports psychologists as a
technique to psych athletes up before a particularly important or
potentially emotional event.
Finally,
both CS and CG imagery are excellent at helping athletes develop
understanding and proficiency in skills, tactics and application of both
within the field of play itself.
There are
many of advantages involved in mental imagery. The first one is the big
potential effect in can have on an athlete that learns to do it well. A
lot of coaches tend to discount the high power of sports psychology in
deciding the final outcomes of sporting events, but just as with any
other profession, athletes are like employees, and employees that have a
higher morale are going to be more productive and perform their jobs at
a higher level. Mental imagery can be used in this sense to help get
athletes to that high level of mindset that they need to perform well.
Additionally, once the athlete has become proficient at mental imagery
techniques, their daily training in mental imagery can be done in as
little as just a few minutes each day.
Disadvantages of Imagery
Imagery has
not proven to be completely successful with some athletes and others
still report that it did not help them at all. In a large amount of
cases, the jury is still out on imagery as a working technique and
because of this some coaches may be reluctant to start using it in their
training regimens. Furthermore, athletes do not have the ability to
train endlessly for hours on end, so the time spent doing imagery
exercises (which is usually at least 15 minutes a day) could, in the
opinion of many coaches, be better spent either resting from exercises
or else doing additional stretching drills.
While
mental imagery can be a powerful way to augment a training regiment, it
is obviously not going to be effective by itself. It can train the mind,
but only conventional workout practices can help to train the body.
Additionally, when a player is just starting their mental training
workout for the first time, the technique of it can be a little bit
difficult to get down. Being able to mentally visualize a scene is a
difficult skill to become proficient in and thus can potentially lead to
frustration on the part of the athlete if they lack patience and
ultimately be detrimental to their overall training.
Conclusion
This can be
a very powerful technique if applied properly and because of that many
athletes have used it to great success. It is important to be very
patient in building up your skills at mental imagery; otherwise the
training could have the opposite effect of the one that was initially
intended. Just like any other type of sports training, imagery is an
acquired skill that will take time to develop and even more time to
master. Do not be discouraged if your images seem clouded at the start;
I'm sure you were not able to bench press 200 lbs the first time you
tried, so do not think that your mental imagery ability needs to be
instantaneous.
|
