Visualization: the mental road to accomplishment

Coach and Athletic Director, August, 1999 by Dennis Best

Over the years, our Track & Cross-Country coaches have, like other coaches, based their training on the physical and mental aspects of their sport.

In fact they appear to have progressed as far as they could go in the physical aspects of training and are now coming to grips with and beginning to make steady headway in the mental aspects.

In Phil Jackson's book, Sacred Hoops, B.J. Armstrong states, "I'll be able to react to it without thinking, because I'll already have seen it in my mind."

Dr. Denis Waitley, author of Quantum Fitness, states that visualization is the ability of the mind to carry out the vivid images of performance as if they have been achieved before and are merely being repeated.

Dr. Kay Porter used the term "Visual Athletics" and believes that imaging a successful performance builds pre-race confidence and helps identify and overcome possible raceday obstacles.

Former University of Illinois basketball coach, Lou Henson, utilized visualization sessions to teach offensive plays to his squad, and Adams State's successful cross-country coach, Dr. Joe Vigil, exhibited video tapes of cross-country courses to better visualize an upcoming race.

To be effective, your athletes must be convinced that this technique is important. They must be informed that great athletes such as Dwight Stones and Jack Nicklaus "go to the movies" before every high jump and every golf shot.

Dr. Robin S. Vealey claims that whenever you imagine performing a particular sport skill, your muscles will fire in the same sequence as an actual performance.

The mind cannot distinguish the difference between an imagined experience and a real one. It, therefore, responds to what you imagine. It becomes a "Mental Blueprint," if you will.

To implement visualization into our program, we have prepared our own visualization cassette tapes. Using soft, relaxing music in the background, one of my assistants or myself will "talk" the athletes through the visualization session.

Our tapes are event-specific, dealing with techniques and strategies pertinent to that particular event. After years of experimenting, we have condensed our visualization sessions down to 10-12 minutes in length.

We believe this time allotment fits nicely into a practice session. To best utilize visualization, one must establish and adhere to a basic set of guidelines:

1. When introducing the visualization sessions to your athletes explain that they will be coaching their mind to respond as programmed. They'll be practicing inside their head to recreate an experience.

Keep in mind, however, that visualization will work only if they believe in it.

2. Visualization can be used for practice and meets. Use it at practice at least once a week. Also encourage your athletes to visualize on their own at every opportunity.

3. We combine visualization and relaxation sessions simultaneously. Research shows that visualization with relaxation is the most effective. Relaxation clears the mind and makes it more receptive to positive images. Athletes are more receptive to these sessions after a workout when they're tired. The athletes lie on their back a comfortable distance away from teammates. It's important for the athlete to be in control of his/her space so that their concentration is not disrupted.

4. Practice visualizing from an internal and external perspective - internal from your own eyes, external as watching a movie of yourself. The athletes choose the method that works best for them. However, visualization from both perspectives is most beneficial.

5. Remind your athletes to use realistic expectations. The athletes should set goals that force them to strive but not above their physical limits. It's important for them to understand that visualization will not allow them to go beyond their physical abilities.

6. Visualize in a quiet, comfortable setting in dim light. Bedtime is the best time to visualize in the home setting. The athlete is completely relaxed, it's quiet, and the subconscious will replay those final thoughts over and over during sleep.

7. Practice using all the senses. Visualization not only encompasses seeing with the mind's eye, but feeling with the body. The use of sight, smell, feel, taste, and hearing will help create a more vivid image of the grass, track surface, track implements, weather, etc. The more vivid the image during visualization, the more effective.

8. Visualize your performance and the outcome. It's important to always finish visualization on a positive note with you always winning or doing well in the event. Our audio cassettes interject positive comments and motivational phrases to enhance positive thinking and confidence.

Increasing numbers of athletes and coaches are using visualization to help them gain a competitive edge. Sean McCann, the sports psychologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, states that the most dramatic changes in sports psychology have occurred in the past 10 years.

We coaches realize that it's not what happens to you in competition that counts most, but how you react to it. In track & field and cross-country where quarters of an inch and hundredths of a second separate winning from losing, visualization can provide the difference.