Mental training, or more specifically, visualisation, is becoming more and more mainstream as exercise professionals and athletes look to gain extra advantages and push their bodies to extreme limits. But believe it or not, visualisation can make a huge difference for the average Joe as well.
Visualisation is the process of mental imagery of task performance. In Layman’s terms, it’s like having a movie in your mind about your optimal performance. You can see yourself completing a race, or pushing through the pain barrier in that 5k event, or simply completing a task that you usually find quite difficult. But each of these ‘movies’ can actually be like a prophecy, and help you achieve the performance you’re after.
Research conducted by the University of Colorado looked into mental imagery training for basketball players, and their performance in free throws. The results revealed a significantly higher than expected number of free throws made in games preceded by the intervention (Post, Wrisberg, & Mullins, 2010).
The premise of mental imagery is that it invokes all of the senses (sight, touch, hearing, taste, smell) and tricks the brain into actually thinking the performance is happening. Then when the time comes to actually perform, the brain acknowledges this prior experience and performs the task more efficiently.
Not only skill specific sports, mental imagery and visualisation can help you run your next 5k or marathon. There is a well-known story of runner Mark Plaatjes at the marathon world championships in 1993. He was given photographs of the Stuttgart course, that he spent hours visualising race scenarios in the lead up to the race. Come race day, he relied upon this bank of knowledge to surge and relax at different points of the course, and eventually win the race.
But not only perfomance-enhancing imagery can help with muscle contraction with extra neurons growing in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for spatial navigation and memory. Each and every day, new neuronal cells are produced (neurogenesis), and even more so after aerobic exercise. Mental imagery enhances the ‘survivability’ of these cells and limits cell degradation, further enhancing performance in the future (Curlik & Shors, 2013).
So here are the top tips for you to use mental imagery in your training regime:
- When visualising, include what the weather will be like, the specifics of the course, the competitors around you, and event the crowd around you. How will these visual clues help you during your event?
- Take the good with the bad. Don’t just visualise the perfect scenario. Think about the pain you might be feeling at the peak of the race. What happens if you cramp? Going through these visual clues will help you put in place a Plan B.
- Feelings! Visualise the feeling you’ll have upon completing the event. This is potentially the most important tip. Allowing yourself to bask in the glory of achieving your dream will only increase your motivation and confidence.
- Above all, focus on what you can control. You can’t do anything about the fact that it’s raining, or that it’s cold, or that it’s early in the morning. You can only control your pace, your nutrition plan, what clothes you’ll wear. So visualise these things, not the things you can’t control.
Give it a go and add it to your training regime. As little as 5-minutes a day can be effective. So try it now, and see what gains you can make.
By Liam Bromilow.
Sources:
Curlik, D. M., & Shors, T. J. (2013). Training your brain: Do mental and physical (MAP) training enhance cognition through the process of neurogenesis in the hippocampus? Neuropharmacology, 64, 506-514. doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2012.07.027
Post, P., Wrisberg, C., & Mullins, S. (2010). A Field Test of the Influence of Pre-Game Imagery on Basketball Free Throw Shooting. Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity, 5(1), 1042-1042.
