Want to improve your sports game? The secret is all in your head.

Athletes find using visualization techniques helps performance

Every athlete, no matter what level of expertise, has imagined hitting the perfect serve, making the perfect basket, or sending the ball sailing past the goalie into the net. These mental scenarios are definitely satisfying — but what if they could actually improve your performance on the field? Research on visualization suggests that this just might be the case.

Visualization, also known as mental imagery, is a cognitive technique that involves creating a detailed mental picture of your desired action. For example, a tennis player might picture herself on the court, throwing the tennis ball high into the air and swinging her racquet so it makes contact with the ball in a perfect ace. The more detail included in the mental image — the weight of the racquet in your hand, the trajectory of the ball — the better.

So how does it work? When we practice a movement, like kicking a soccer ball or hitting a line drive, our brain cells are activated in specific patterns, made up of a series of neural connections. The more we practice, the stronger the pathways become, and the better our performance. Engaging in visualization techniques activates those pathways the same way actual physical practice does, helping to perfect them even without any external action.

A study conducted at the University of Western Ontario showed the benefits of visualization for both beginner and varsity soccer players. First, all players were shown a soccer drill — dribbling through cones and shooting the ball at a target — and were allowed to practice it.

Then, the players were split into two groups, an experimental and control group. The experimental group were instructed to visualize the drill during three separate sessions over six weeks, creating mental images of themselves successfully dribbling and shooting the ball. The control group were instructed to write down a detailed plan of how to best approach the soccer drill, but were not instructed to use visualization techniques.

At the end of the study, both beginners and varsity players in the experimental group showed improvement on the soccer drill. Not only could they perform the drill better than they had at the beginning of the study, they also performed significantly better than the players in the control group.

Another study from the Netherlands found that participants who imagined themselves lifting weights produced actual changes in muscle activity, while a review that looked at twenty-one studies showed that visualization caused significant improvement in various motor performance skills compared to control conditions.

Evidence of the power of visualization isn’t limited to researchers. Olympic freestyle skier and gold medalist Jennifer Heil credits visualization with helping her prepare for competition, stating that she has never gone into a race or performed a jump without visualizing it first. Other proponents of the technique are pro golfer Tiger Woods and NBA star Michael Jordan, along with countless other Olympic athletes like Heil.

So next time, before lacing up your sneakers or heading out onto the slopes, take a few minutes to imagine yourself performing exactly how you want to — and you’ll be one step closer to making it a reality.

Try it yourself:

• Find a quiet space where you can sit down.
• Close your eyes gently.
• Bring to mind the image of yourself performing a sports task you want to improve, for example, making a clean pass to a teammate in soccer. Focus on the colors, textures and even the smells of the image, trying to make it as detailed as you can.
• Repeat two or three times a week.

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