Mind Over Muscles! Transform Your Workout With Visualization

Mind over matter: we’ve all heard the phrase, but how much can your brain help with your workouts? What does physical strength have to do with mental strength?

Whether you’re an Olympian going for gold or a casual exerciser squeezing in a quick workout over your lunch break, visualizing success can help you to reach your fitness goals.

Who Uses Mind Power?

Plenty of top athletes say they’ve used imagery (sometimes called visualization) as an aid in their sports performance.

This includes four-time Olympic discus champion Al Oerter, tennis superstar Billie Jean King, Olympic bobsledder Lyndon Rush, aerialist Emily Cook, alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, slalom skier Mikaela Shiffrin, decathlon runner Bruce Jenner, gymnast Shannon Miller, snowboarder Jamie Anderson, basketball players Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, golfer Tiger Woods, and volleyball Olympic gold medal winners, Misty May-Trainor and Kerry Walsh.

Why It Works

Creating a mental script of an upcoming event can help prepare athletes for what’s to come.

By picturing the lay of the land, hearing the roar of the crowd, smelling the sweat, and feeling the body’s movements.

However, whether you’re playing the sport on an experienced level or to work on your fitness, or even just for entertainment, you would want to do your decent to prevent any sports injury.

A crucial sports injury may sideline you from your sport, and perhaps even your fitness habit for an extended moment

If you go over the script, again and again, you’ll feel mentally prepared when it’s time to put on your game face.

At the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, the United States team brought along nine sports psychologists. Psychologists work with athletes to help them picture every aspect of the competition before it begins and to imagine every move the athlete will make from start to finish.

In more controlled sports like aerials, ski jumping, and bobsledding (where there aren’t unexpected obstacles or other competitors on the course at the same time), mentally going through the routine over and over can be helpful.

For less controlled sports like snowboarding or racing, it can be beneficial to visualize several different scenarios.

How to Do It

The key to imagery is knowing that it’s more than just thinking about an event – to be successful, one must feel as if the event is taking place in the body.

Using all of the senses – not just sight – is critical. It’s also important to learn to be calm in the face of chaos.

Many athletes practice meditation as a way of achieving this.

This can help clear the mind and quiet the negative voices that could otherwise sabotage a performance.

Another key to imagery is setting clear and specific goals. If “I want to be more fit” is your goal, how will you even go about visualizing this? Think instead about specific goals or particular events.

Mentally take yourself through the 5K route you’re about to run. Imagine the splash of the water before you get into the pool to do laps.

Picture your muscles contracting before you begin a weightlifting session.

Still not convinced of the connection between your brain and fitness? Take a look at this Ohio University study that put casts on the non-dominant arms of 29 healthy people for four weeks.

Half of the participants were assigned mental imagery exercises to perform five times a week.

While everyone in the study experienced muscle weakness in the casted arms, those who did the mental exercises lost 50 percent less strength than those who did not.

You can easily boost your health by giving sufficient time to sleep schedule

Visualization, therefore, had a great impact on overall muscle strength.

Imagery can’t replace exercise itself – you can’t reap the benefits by spending all your time on the couch, eyes closed, going over your routine again and again.

However, imagery can be used to enhance exercise. Think of it as a tool to make your performance better. You wouldn’t show up at the gym without your running shoes or a full bottle of water, right? Don’t start a routine without visualizing it first.

Imagine what will come and turn yourself into a champion.