The Power of Visualization

One of the most powerful strategies I use both as an athlete and, now as a performance coach, is the power of visualization.  I find it amazing that your mind doesn't know the difference between when you perform your sport for real and when you practice it in your mind through visualization.

I like to say 'If you can SEE it, you can BE it!'

When scientists studied this phenomenon, they hooked electrodes to athletes and had them first perform their sport for real, and then to perform the same skills in their mind.  The electrical stimulus in the brain showed the same muscles firing in the same order at the same rate when they were doing their sport skill for real as when they were doing it in their mind.  The brain didn't know the difference between practicing for real and practicing in the mind through visualization.

So, you can get those extra reps and hours of practice in without the extra physiological stress.  That's powerful.

But there's more: studies have shown that practicing in your mind can actually be more beneficial then practicing in real-life.  Can you believe it? 

The reason why is that in our mind we can do it perfectly each and every time! Think about it: when you're in training, even on your best days, I'm certain you make an error, usually multiple.  Training is a place where we're supposed to try new things which does result in more errors and that's normal.  In our mind though we can be so much in control of our surroundings, our actions and the result that we create an opportunity for perfect practice which leads to faster results.

I remember my mental coach Dr. Banack telling me once about a study on basketball players where they divided the athletes into 3 equal groups in terms of free throw average.  The first group was only allowed to practice shooting for the designated period of time, let's say 2 hours a day for 2 months.  The second group was asked to practice shooting for half the time and visualize shooting for  the other half.  The third group was asked only to visualize for the full duration of the study.  At the end of the study, which group do you think had the highest free throw percentage?

Yes, it was the group that did both the physical shooting and the mental rehearsal.  There was an advantage to physically doing the skill that was rehearsed in the mind.

Now, the next part of the study shocked me knowing what athletes naturally do: the athletes who only did the mental rehearsal or visualization had the second best free throw percentage, and it was only a little bit less than the first group.  It appears that as soon as we become competent at our sport, it is in our favor practice in our mind on it's on to just practicing in physical reality (but remember that doing both has the highest result).  Again, this is because of our ability to mental rehearse our skills perfectly in our mind. 

The crazy thing is this: the majority of us only practice on the court, in the pool, on the field, in the gym, in the rink, etc. and not in our minds.  The majority of athletes do not use visualization as a necessary tool to master their performance.  Do you right now?  If so, are you doing enough?  If not, are you going to get started today?  Please feel free to post your comments to this blog below.

Based on that study, I'm sure you can now clearly see the importance of visualization in any performance.  We are what we think and if we can see it we can be it!

So I urge you to download my Performance Visualization and listen to it daily or even twice a day.  It's only 7 minutes long, but it will make a huge impact in your performance.

by Coach Kara, www.performancetolife.com