Keep Training Your Mind When Your Body Needs A Break
The Power of Positive Visualization
When you think of peak performance—dialled into action—it’s hard to find a better example than Olympic athletes.
These competitors train their minds as rigorously as their bodies. In the world of Olympic sports, where podium finishes can be determined by milliseconds, there is simply no room for error.
Michael Phelps is a prime example of an athlete who emphasized mental training as much as physical preparation. When an athlete has maxed out their physical capabilities in training, their mind often still has more to give. Using mental imagery to visualize training taps into this reserve of mental energy, further refining the body’s ability to perform.
After exhaustive training sessions in the pool, burning through thousands of calories, Phelps would settle down with a stopwatch. In a comfortable, focused state, he’d start the timer and visualize every stroke of his race—the cool water, the flow of oxygen, and his muscles working in harmony, propelling him through the water like a dolphin. His coach, Bob Bowman, identified this as Phelps' superpower. By the time he stopped the timer, the race in his mind would mirror his actual gold medal-winning performances—right down to the milliseconds.
Phelps excelled at this practice. Let’s explore how you can apply these visualization principles to your own pursuits.
Positive Visualization - What Is It?
Visualization involves mentally rehearsing physical actions. You can focus on a positive mindset, envisioning successful outcomes, or adopt a negative outlook, expecting setbacks. It's beneficial to master positive visualization before engaging in the negative thinking that prepares you for disaster.
While Olympians like Phelps regularly use visualization, can ordinary people also benefit from this technique? Research often focuses on easily measurable skills, such as free throw shooting or golf putting, to study mental imagery's effectiveness.
How To Start a Visualization Practice
Visualization can be seen as an active form of meditation. Begin by finding a comfortable, spacious spot to lie down. This helps in creating vivid mental imagery of physical activities.
Start by calming your mind: take a few deep breaths and relax. If you’re preparing for a specific event, gather details about the venue to enhance your visualization. Picture everything—the sights, sounds, and sensations of the event—from your arrival to your victory celebration.
This exercise demands intense focus, illustrating why meditation is crucial for achieving mastery and entering a state of flow.
Advanced Visualization Techniques
Once you’re comfortable with basic visualization, you can incorporate more advanced techniques:
The Stopwatch Technique
This technique helps athletes like Phelps match their visualized performance to actual timings. Holding a stopwatch while visualizing allows you to approximate the real duration of your performance, aiding in mental preparation. A coach can also help by facilitating this so you focus on your mental imagery without worrying about the stopwatch.
I used the stopwatch technique a lot when mentally preparing for strongman competitions. There was almost always a time-based event or two in a competition where your placing depended on how fast you did the event. Using a stopwatch allowed me to imagine how the event would play out so that all I had to do on competition day was replay the event I had trained a ton physically and mentally imagined even more times.
The Countdown
For events with a time limit, setting a countdown timer can intensify focus and simulate competition conditions, adding pressure to your practice.
Strongman events always had a time cap on them so I would use this technique in training often for every competition along with the stopwatch.
Full Immersion
With repeated practice, you can achieve a state of full immersion, where your body reacts as if it's actually participating in the event. This level of visualization can induce physical symptoms like increased heart rate and sweating, indicating peak mental training.
after several warm-up rounds of visualizing the events of a strongman competition, I would be more focused and feel like my body was primed and ready. At this point, when you start the practice, your muscles can start twitching and your heart rate may shoot up as your brain believes that you’re in the situation you’re training for. Adrenaline gets released and you may even start sweating.
All this means you’ve made it to the pinnacle of fully immersing yourself in your mind for the event you’re visualizing. This is as good as it gets for mental training for performance.
Looking Ahead: Negative Visualization
Preparing for the best often means being ready for the worst. Next week, we’ll explore negative visualization—preparing mentally for potential challenges and setbacks.
Until then, it's time to take action.
Take Action
Think about how you can apply visualization to the area you’re working on mastering or your primary flow activity.
Schedule one session this week to practice positive visualization. You can substitute 10-15 minutes of a meditation session for it.