Mental Imagery in Sports

 

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Influences on Performance

Mental imagery can be an important aspect in increasing the performance of athletes in their perspective sports. Mental imagery is described “repetitive mental practice or mental training that designates mental representation of the performance of a motor pattern without concomitant production on the muscular activity normally required for the act.” Mental imagery is a technique that athletes can use to supplement physical practice and improve their performance in their given sport. Mental imagery is often part of a mental practice routine that might also include such techniques as relaxation, self-talk, and goal setting. Athletes use mental imagery in these programs so much that mental imagery and mental practice have almost become synonymous terms. Research has proven that mental imagery is effective in increasing performance in such sports as dart throwing, diving, figure skating, and gymnastics but those studies can also be generalized to other sporting performances. Healthy individuals using mental imagery may experience performance gains in areas such as strength, arm-pointing capacity, range of motion, and postural control as well as gains in speed, accuracy, and strength during motor skills.

There are several considerations to take into account when using a mental imagery program to improve performance for athletes. Mental imagery seems to be better than no practice at all, but mental imagery alone is not as good as physical practice alone. Mental imagery cannot completely substitute for physical practice and it appears as though a combination of mental imagery and physical practice leads to the most effective performance. There also appears to be a difference in the effectiveness of mental imagery between novice and elite athletes. Novice athletes use mental imagery less effectively than elite athletes do because elite athletes “use mental imagery more frequently, have better visualization abilities, and employ more structured mental practice sessions.”

Mental imagery is most effective when practiced over time; however, research has shown that athletes most often use mental imagery immediately prior to an event to help boost performance. Laboratory studies show that using mental imagery without prior practice is still effective as long as the performance comes directly after the mental imagery use. For example, a golfer may experience good results using mental imagery techniques immediately prior to hitting their golf shot while mental imagery used once a week before the tournament may not provide much benefit. Mental imagery is a technique that can help athletes improve their performance but just like all other skills it requires practice to be most effective.

Process of Mental Imagery

There are two models that are used most frequently in the literature for the process of mental imagery. The first model, the applied model, athletes use imagery to accomplish cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. It includes three factors: the sport situation, types of imagery, and imagery ability to contribute to its effectiveness. In other words, what you imagine is what the intended outcome is. There are several types of imagery within this model such as: cognitive specific, cognitive general, motivational specific, motivational general arousal, motivational general master, and many more .

The second model, the PETTLEP, is based off the notion that brain structures are activated during imagery. It is this neural component that modulates motor and sports performance. PETTLEP stands for physical, environment, task, timing, learning, emotion, and perspective. The imagery used should incorporate each factor stated previously and be as realistic as possible. For example, the athlete should imagine himself/herself in their uniform, on their home field/court, going through the motions of the game at game speed .

The actual process to how mental imagery is performed is not well researched. In most of the literature the process is not even mentioned. There are many questions that need to be answered such as: Do you perform MI in a dark room? Does someone need to read a script to the athlete? How long should the athlete perform MI? How many times a week? Treatment protocols used by physical therapists are uncommon and highly variable. At this point, protocols are suggested and need further research to support them. MI has been used in other realms of physical therapy such as in motor learning and motor rehabilitation for many years and is supported more in the literature.

Liu and colleagues examined a protocol for improvement of ADLs and upper-extremity use after stroke. The imagery group performed 3 practice sets, of 5 ADL task, give for 1 hour, 5 days a week for 3 weeks. The first week was the easiest ADL tasks and the last week was the most difficult consisting of going shopping or to a park. The imagery group achieved a significantly higher performance level on the trained tasks as well as untrained task compared to the control group. Page and colleagues provided their patients with 30 minutes of imagery twice a week using an audio tape. Improvements were found at the end of 6 weeks .

An article by Dickstein, Dunsky, and Marcovitz (2004) stated that MI should be performed with subjects in a reclined position and eyes closed. Exercises to relax the subject’s body should be performed first then they should precede with MI. A meta-analysis stated that healthy individuals shouldn’t use MI for any longer than 20 minutes due to a negative effect with increased practice duration. For patients who have had a stroke, one researcher recommended that training times should be between 12-15 minutes .

References

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