Imagery to Improve Performance

When performing imagery, it’s important to measure multiple modalities. We want to make sure they are breathing at nice HRV, they dont have too much tension, are we leading up to their routines, where is their SC, we dont want them under or overaroused, when they do imagery we want skin conductance to remain constant.

How to start with imagery :

Warm up to it:

• Imagine your alarm going off

• What do your goggles feel like

• What does the ice feel like smell like

More complex:

• For swimming, waht does your start look like

• What does your middle area look like

• What do your flip turns look like

• How do you want to end your race

Something to study:

What will be the different effects of working memory, memory retrieval and future events in HEG activation/relaxation - is there a difference between an athlete who is standing on the podium envisioning themselves winning in the future or one remembering them standing on a podium in the past.

Tennis racket grip with EMG:

• Measure muscle tension when athlete is holding a tennis raquet and when their coach is holding tennis racket to change the grip

Exercises to do to convince people that imagery works and there is a mind-body connection:

1. Heavy Book: People close the eyes and put both hands up. Imagine there is a super ehavy book i th left hand… heavy and weighing down, causing lots of pressure… etc. Generally the left hand is lower

2. Sunlight trick tape between the eyes : Help demonstrate when i

Want to use EMG to measure when they are doing a sports move right. If they are doing the sports move right, then we want to note down those EMG scores and when they are doing imagery they should be aiming for thos same scores. 

Why is it important:

• To see success. If you see yourself winning, you can get there

• To motivate. Get yourself through hard sets.

• To learn perfect skills

• To refocus.

  • After a bad shot. 25 seconds, want to imagine the shot I want to have done to make that correction.

  • Imagery for where the person will be competing in their sport. A swimmer should imagine

If you’re good at imagery, you need to image positive and negative imagery.

• Hockey: Get the athlete to perform the night before. If working with golley, want to make sure they are sticking to routine and imagine making key moves

• Swimming: Imagine the beginning the middle and the end.