Researchers in Tunisia decided to find the most effective means of psyching up. They tested two well-established methods. The first, imagery, involves visualizing yourself performing the task to the best of your ability. The next, arousal, involves simply getting as excited as possible before starting the task. The researchers tested both of these methods against two control scenarios.

To perform the test, researchers recruited sixteen experienced male sprinters. Each sprinter performed a maximal thirty-meter sprint followed by a rest interval. The researchers chose short sprints because in sports acceleration is generally more valuable than speed. During the rest interval, the sprinter was coached to use one of the above mental techniques, or a control method where he was required to count backwards from 1,000 in increments of seven. No, I’m not joking. I think I’d rather just run another sprint. Another interesting fact: the sprinters were all required to eat the same breakfast. Breakfast was one cake, a glass of orange juice, and water. I hope they enjoyed their cake.

When the data was analyzed, the researchers found that visualization was the clearly superior technique. When athletes used imagery during their rest intervals they consistently reduced their sprint times. Out of the sixteen sprinters, fourteen reduced their sprint times using imagery. Arousal worked as well, but not much better than the control conditions, so imagery was the clear winner.

Imagery is easy to use. Before attempting a task, just visualize yourself performing the task and being successful. This could mean visualizing a lift being made, a fast sprint, or anything else you attempt. Before my athletes attempt record lifts, I often coach them to, “See it happening. Visualize success.” I think many of my athletes have used imagery in this way to achieve new personal records.

So next time you’re attempting a difficult task, try using imagery to improve your performance. Even if you’re accustomed to using arousal, or otherwise getting excited before a lift, try imagery for a change. Sixteen Tunisian sprinters can’t be wrong.

References

1. Sarra Hammoudi-Nassib, et al. “Effects of psyching-up on sprint performance.” Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research: POST ACCEPTANCE, 28 January 2014. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000373

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Visualization: The Simple Tool for Even Greater Athletic Success (Erica Saint Clair)

In 1984 the Russians realized that Olympic athletes who mentally rehearsed their sport experienced a positive impact on their performance. It’s simple, and you should try it too.

Breaking Muscle Video – Visualization Techniques, Part 1 (Traver H. Boehm)

Visualizing any part of your athletic game is bound to improve performance and lower anxiety. This video will walk you through HOW to effectively visualize.

How a Confused Mind Makes for a Strong Body (Nick Horton)

How can bad memory be a good thing? How can we use the “plasticity” of our brains to help us lift more weight? Some simple concepts and practices can have you lifting more.

Meditation for the Athlete: 8 Steps to Get You Started (Julie Rader)

As an athlete, you know that giving your mind time to recover is important, and visualization can be a tool for success. Here’s how to quiet the mind and get started on this beneficial practice.

Science Says: Visualization Improves Strength Training (Jeff Barnett)

Can your thoughts determine whether you set a PR? Science says “yes.” According to new research, mental imagery can be a powerful tool for strength training.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post See How It’s Done: 6 Lessons on Visualization appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There is what for some may be a surprising study found in the book Peak Performance by Charles Garfield. The study shows just how powerful mental training can be for athletes:

“In my meetings with the Soviet researchers in Milan, they discussed government funded athletic programs that integrate sophisticated mental training and rigorous physical training. One study evaluating these intensive programs suggests their potential. Four matched groups of world-class Soviet athletes diligently trained for many hours each week. The training regimens were as follows:

Group I – 100% physical training

Group II – 75% physical training, 25% mental training

Group III – 50% physical training, 50% mental training

Group IV – 25% physical training, 75% mental training

When the four groups were compared shortly before the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, Group IV had shown significantly greater improvement than Group III, with Groups II and I following, in that order.”

Wow! Basically this says that the more mental training you do the better. However, there are some things that are unclear here.

How big were these groups? Were these percentages durations of time or something else? Were the first three groups just overtraining and was that what led to Group IV being the best performers? Lastly, what mental training did these athletes do?

There are many different kinds. One of the most well known is visualization, which will be the focus of this article, but that is not the only area of mental training.

Unfortunately I’ve never found more details to this research than has been presented here. And I think it’s too bad there was no Group V that did 100% mental training. It would have been interesting to see where they ended up.

Most people have heard of the study done with basketball free throws, where those athletes who only did visualization for practice had almost the same amount of improvement as those who physically practiced. But much more has been done in the study of visualization then just that well-popularized one.

In 1992, Anne Isaac led an experiment with 78 subjects of trampolinists, some of whom were experts and others novices.

They were divided into experimental and control groups, and this was a blind study, so the experimenter was unaware of who was in which group. Isaac had the participants tested on visualization skills through assessment and classed them as high or low imagers. Both groups were trained in three skills over a six-week period.

The practice was laid out as follows:

• 2.5 minutes of physical practice on the skills
• 5 minutes of mental imagery for the experimental group
• 5 minutes of abstract mental problems like math or puzzles for the control group
• 2.5 minutes of physical practice once again

In the end, there was a significant difference in performance between both the high imager and low imager groups, with the high imagers getting superior results.

There was also a significant difference between the mental imagery group and the control group, again the former group leading. Both the novice and expert groups saw improvement, which showed that visualization works in beginners and advanced people.

This was one of few studies showing that not only was visualization successful, but better visualization was more successful.

I think the term visualization is actually a bit of a misnomer. A better term is multi-sensory imagination or mental rehearsal. Although the visual component is important, so are the other senses:

• Visual– Using your sense of sight to see pictures, images, and movies.
• Auditory– Using your sense of hearing for listening to sounds.
• Kinesthetic– Using your sense of touch to feel tactile sensations and proprioceptives of the movement. This area also covers the emotions, which we will talk more about later.
• Olfactory– Using your sense of smell.
• Gustatory– Using your sense of taste.

In fact, for most sports I would advise that the most important component is the third one, kinesthetic.

There are actually several sub-components brought under this heading, like balance, pressures, as well as emotions and internal sensations. If you’re properly visualizing your muscles will be firing to some degree. Watch anyone experienced in doing proper visualization of exercises and you’ll see little micro-movements as the muscles contract and relax.

So how do you become good at visualizing? Practice.

You need to practice in order to build up your abilities to imagine the different senses with vividness, to hold them all within your mind, without having all your focus going to one specific thing.

It takes that practice to get to that point so you can actually get solid results from doing the visualization.

A Simple Visualization Drill

Here is a simple drill you can do. For the sake of the example lets say we’re going to visualize a barbell snatch.

1. Pick an exercise to perform in your mind and close your eyes.
2. See the barbell in front of you. Notice the gym setting around you. Do you see other people in the gym? How bright is the image? How big is it? Is it a series of still images or do you have a movie playing? Are you seeing yourself in the picture or are you there now as it if were really happening?
3. What sounds do you hear? Is music playing? Is there the clanking of weights around you? People talking or grunting? Are you talking to yourself?
4. What is your emotional state as you look at the barbell? How does chalk feel in your hands? Go ahead and grasp the bar and get into a ready position. Then pull and notice how it feels as you get the bar overhead and stand up with it.
5. Did you notice any smells or tastes as you went through this process? (These aren’t necessary but can be powerful if you include them.)

I will also add that using a technique like progressive relaxation or self-hypnosis will enhance the results of this process, as you’re able to turn your focus more inward.

The more you practice visualization the easier it will become and the more you can hold in your mind at one time.

In the beginning, just like when working out, it may be hard, but if you persist with it your mind will get stronger.

References:

1. Garfield, Charles A., Peak Performance: Mental Training Techniques of the World’s Greatest Athletes (California: Warner Books, 1984), 16

2. Isaac, A. R. (1992). Mental Practice- Does it Work in the Field? The Sport Psychologist, 6, 192-198.

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The post The History, Science, and How-To of Visualization appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

When it comes to personal records and maximal effort, our minds shy away because they like the neat and the organized. What they don’t like is the dark place we have to go to in order to crank out our new personal records. Our minds like R&R, repeat and recycle. They don’t like hitting the redline and trying to surge past it into new ground.

So if we let them, they plateau.

You may have found yourself a great coach and a great place to train, your technique is improving, your times are getting faster, your weights are heavier – things are progressing logically, for the moment. And then you ask yourself to push just a little harder, and out of the blue, your progress has flat-lined.

You find yourself stagnating away, even though you are doing all the right things for mobility, nutrition, muscle care, and supplements. You find yourself failing at the same weight, day after day, week after miserable week.

You think that maybe you should go more often, maybe you need a one-on-one class, maybe you need a different coach. You don’t think that it is just your mind messing with you, holding you back.

But it is.

In 1984 the Russians realized that Olympic athletes who mentally rehearsed their sport experienced a positive impact on their performance. Since then the area has been widely studied. In the 1990s a researcher showed that just five minutes of mental visualization, versus five minutes of basic tasks yielded a significant difference in overall performance – and the dramatic increase in performance wasn’t limited just to experienced professionals, the researcher showed that it applied to novices as well.¹

Just five minutes.

Another researcher showed that mere mental rehearsal triggered responses from the autonomic nervous system, which in turn improved athletic performance. It seems that the simple act of visualizing a movement, be it an Olympic lift, a desired gymnastic skill, or an overall performance, helps in the construction of schema.²

Heck, one study even showed that people who carried out virtual weight training workouts increased their muscle strength by 13.5%. 13.5%! For simply thinking about lifting weights. That was almost half of the gains seen by the group that actually lifted weights (they saw a 30% increase in muscle strength).³

So why does visualizing success work? It works because you imagine yourself performing whatever task with perfect form.

You see yourself lifting a new PR off the ground, you see yourself above the rings after a perfectly executed muscle up, or you see yourself running Pose method. And when you see yourself doing all of these amazing things, your brain is creating a neural pattern, one that your muscles will follow tomorrow when you are in the gym.⁴

The best part is that visualizing success isn’t particularly difficult or time consuming (really, five minutes a day is like brushing your teeth one more time a day).

If you have the time, you can check out some great reading on sports psychology. I would recommend 10-Minute Toughness by Jason Selk, Finding Your Zone by Michael Lardon and David Leadbetter, An Athlete’s Guide to Sport Psychology by Tony Reilly, or Mind Gym: An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence by Gary Mack.

But you can also just jump right on in. There is no right way to practice visualization, you can do it at the gym sitting on a stack of weights or at home under warm covers, in a loud bustling area or in a quiet out cove. You don’t even have to put in five minutes, just put in whatever time you can.

During that time you want to mentally rehearse your movements, think about the bar coming to rest on your chest, the stomp and placement of your feet in your jerk, the sound of the weight crashing to the platform after you have successfully completed the lift. Set yourself a very specific goal, imagine achieving your goal, see yourself achieving your goal, see all of the detail with all of your senses. Hear your coach screaming, feel the sweat trickling down your forehead, smell the plywood, see the plates on the bar, taste the victory.

Like Muhammad Ali did each time before entering the ring, tell yourself, again and again, “I am the greatest.” Visualize your success, succeed before even attempting the weight for real. Let your mind work for you.

References:

1. Isaac, A. R. (1992). Mental Practice- Does it Work in the Field? The Sport Psychologist, 6, 192-198.

2. Roure, R., et al. (1998). Autonomic Nervous System Responses Correlate with Mental Rehearsal in Volleyball Training. Journal of Applied Physiology, 78(2), 99-108.

3. Ranganathan V.K. (2004) From mental power to muscle power –gaining strength using the mind. Neuropsychologia, 42(7) 944-56

4. Porter, K., Foster, J. Visual Athletics. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Publishers, 1990.

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The authors recommend a four-step process. First, visualize the workout to come and the goal you want to achieve. Visualize yourself achieving your goal. Next, just prior to taking the bar, imagine a successful lift. Next, repeat the previous visualization while lifting. Finally, replay the lift in your mind. Use this post-lift phase to begin correcting a problem or even imagine adding more weight. If you identified a problem, imagine another successful lift in which you correct it.¹

I have personally used visualization in my own training and have coached athletes to do the same. I use mental imagery in two ways: visualizing success, as the authors suggest, and visualizing a stressful event from the past to create an adrenaline rush. The latter technique is far less researched, but it works for me.

About twenty seconds prior to a lift I begin re-living a stressful scenario that caused an adrenaline rush. I imagine the situation in detail, recounting my surroundings and thoughts. Whenever I “feel” the rush, I take the bar and lift. I’ve coached others to use this technique as well. I don’t tell them what to visualize, because it’s got to be real to them. I also don’t ask them what they’re visualizing, because that’s not really important and it’s none of my business. One of my athletes, Dan, used this technique to deadlift 400 pounds for the first time. Since breaking that barrier using visualization he has added 25 more pounds to that PR.

But I don’t recommend using this technique often during your training day. Honestly, it just becomes too fatiguing. I limit it to one or two uses during PR attempts. Also, don’t start the visualization until right before you take the bar. The rush doesn’t last very long, and if you start too early (30-60 seconds before lifting) then your body will realize reality is much safer than in your mind, and you won’t make full use of the rush.

So whether you’ve determined your own visualization technique or you use something similar to the one outlined in the research above, science has found links between what our minds see and what our bodies do. What visualization or imagery techniques have you used? Please share in the comments below.

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