Visualization is an extremely powerful tool in the sport psychology toolbox. Most of us have a general idea of what it is. We can imagine what it looks like when someone is using the technique. Some of us have even used it before prior to competition or practice. However, many of us don’t truly understand the technique or use it often enough. Let’s take a look at visualization to see how we can use it to boost our performance.
What is it exactly?
Visualization is a sport psychology technique we can use prior to performing a task that will help us perform it. It has tremendous power if done correctly. Best of all, we can utilize it throughout our life. We can use it for everything from taking a test to playing a tennis match.
So how do we visualize something?
Good question. Let’s use one rep of the bench press for an example. When we visualize this task, we can picture ourselves laying on the bench and seeing the bar above us. We move slightly on the bench to become comfortable. Next, we grab hold of the bar, shifting our hands as necessary to get a comfortable grip. Breathing in and out, we prepare to lift the weight off and then away from the supports. As we lower the weight to our chest, we gather our breath, holding it until the bar touches our chest. After it touches, we breath out and push the weight up as hard as we can. Once we lock our elbows out we slowly move the bar back to the supports and lower it. We’ve completed the exercise.
I’ve used it before, but it didn’t work.
I’m glad you’ve used the technique, and I’m sorry you feel it didn’t work. One thing that is important to realize with this technique (like many other tools at your disposal) is that it’s not an end-all, be-all solution to all of our problems. It does increase our performance, sometimes by a lot, however we can’t expect it to work all the time or for it to give us superhuman capabilities. Visualization takes practice, just like our sports themselves. The more we use it, the better the advantages are that it gives us.
Give visualization a try. While it won’t help you overcome great obstacles on its own, it will help you in subtle ways. Oftentimes, those very small differences can lead to victory rather than defeat.
