Why visualizing matters
So we know the physical aspect of exercising but what about learning how to mentally get stronger. I think visualization is over looked and we often think more about just the execution of the movement. When you can tap into that place mentally you can easily create more of a stimulus which will in fact help you become stronger. I’d honestly even go as far as saying the mental component is more important than the physical.
“A 2012 study published in the Strength and Conditioning Journal found that before actually attempting it, visualizing an exercise can result in increased performance success. This visualization involves using your senses to create a mental image of a physical task before you attempt it, including imagining what the movement will feel like in your muscles and your mind.”
Get your mind right and you can do almost everything. Being able to visualize is a skill that takes a lot of practice. No one really knows why this helps improve performance but the ability for someone to use the power of mental rehearsal can help increase confidence and helps build the pathways in the nervous system that are aligned with reducing distractions and anxiety. Also it can help with improving focus and attention allowing for you to improve mind muscle connection or perform a movement better.
“Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio investigated the strength benefits of imagining exercising a muscle. They reported that just thinking about exercise helped maintain muscle strength in a group of subjects.
They split 30 healthy young adults into 3 groups. For 15 minutes a day, five days a week for 12 weeks, Group #1 imagined exercising their little finger muscle. Group #2 imagined exercising their biceps muscle and Group #3 acted as a control group and did no imaginary exercise. Those in the first two groups were asked to think as strongly as they could about moving the muscle being tested, to make the imaginary movement as real as possible. The researchers measured muscle strength before, during and after the training sessions.”
The study ended up showing that the two groups who were able to use visualization techniques actually shows improvements in the brain’s ability to signal muscle activity. The researchers also believe that anyone who has difficulty doing physical exercises can use mental training and mental rehearsal methods to improve the muscle strength they may have lost or maintain the muscle strength they have.
These skills can enhance performance, increase enjoyment, and promote persistence in pursuit of goals. So you might be saying this all sounds great but how exactly do I do this. Three common skill practices are:
Imagery/Visualization
Arousal/ activation regulation
Self-talk
Imagery
This first skill is being able to create a mental rehearsal of a new or past experience. So the way to do this is start by visualizing every part of the movement and how you would approach it. Let’s take a deadlift for example. You would start by approaching the bar…planting your feet..taking your breath… taking your grip and pulling out the slack from the bar…getting everything tight…pushing through the floor…and finishing by getting your hips through. Visualizing your lift can build confidence, prime your thoughts and expectations for success, and increase the practice you get with the exercise.
Activation
You want to think of activation as your energy levels. We have the ability to turn ourselves up to a 10 during performance but we also have the power to keep them low like taking Yoga. For everything we do this is a scale and when it comes to performance everyone has a specific number they go to for performing their best. When you learn the techniques of anxiety-reduction and arousal you’ll be able to slow yourself down or pump yourself up in order to perform optimally.
When we get ready for a heavy lift or maybe just something physically challenging we’d want to use this technique in this case to increase our hear rate to perform on a higher scale. We might do this by focusing on increasing your breathing, listening to music, or even giving yourself a pep talk. Now if we had the opposite of this you might find a quite place to slow down your thoughts and breathing, muscle relaxation techniques, or finding a way to create a relaxation response.
Self talk
Self talk aka those voices in our heads that can either be positive or negative thoughts. These thoughts help us function at work,in relationships, and in our daily lives. Negative self talk is real and when this happens it can impede performance, negate enjoyment, or become critical. Prime examples are:
Black or White Thinking: Thinking only in extremes (all-or-nothing) thinking.
Arbitrary Inference: Generalizing one negative comment or experience to be representative of everything in your life.
Mental Reading: Presuming you know what others are thinking.
Catastrophizing: Thinking that the absolute worst thing that can happen, will happen.
Emotional Reasoning: Presuming that feelings are facts.
"Shoulds": Focusing on how things "should" have gone down, as opposed to how they actually are.
When you're discouraged and thinking negatively, you're less likely to take a risk, push yourself hard, or persist with a challenging goal. Recognizing your own tendencies to think negatively is the first step. Once you've identified some problematic thinking, consider the impact those thoughts have on your own feelings, and then in turn your emotions' impact on your behaviors. So when you find your positivity slipping and those dark clouds coming in, letting those bad thoughts to pile up…. here’s some tricks
Identify the negative thinking
Look at the data
Reframe, regroup, move forward
Focus on the present