Brain in the Game | Sport Mind Coaching Podcast
Dave Diggle
Episode Seven – Visualisation Techniques for Athletes – Why is visualisation so effective for athletes?
Hello and welcome back to Brain in the Game, the podcast specifically designed for athletes, coaches and parents who want to do it smarter. Brain in the Game is like a session on ‘origami of the mind’; our mind’s efficiency, deficiencies and possibilities - and I am your host, Dave Diggle.
In this episode we’re going to look at something that athletes and coaches the world over for many, many years have been talking about but nobody really understands, and that’s visualisation. Nearly every coach in the world, at some point, will tell every one of their athletes that they need to visualise their routines, their skills, their competition preparation. It’s as old as coaching itself. What isn’t as clear is why, when and how we effectively visualise. So in today’s episode we’re going to look at just those things. We’re going to look at why visualisation works, the science behind this skill; we’re going to show you how to effectively visualise using the many different styles and types of visualisation out there; and we’re going to look at when the best times are to visualise and what ones and what skills to use and when.
When I speak to coaches, overwhelmingly the vast the majority of them recognise the importance of visualisation in their training. They also acknowledge that they have little understanding about how visualisation works and what styles of visualisation are out there for them to use. I can remember as an athlete myself standing at the edge of the floor waiting to do my routine with my eyes closed, my arms swinging around and me picturing myself doing my routine. That rudimentary kind of visualisation, the kind of visualisation that most athletes and coaches do use, came from somewhere. I don’t ever remember being taught the skill, I don’t ever remember watching anybody else do it. It was something we just adopted and did. We knew it had some benefits, but I don’t think any of us really recognised or understood how it worked.
So how does it work? In an earlier episode we spoke about using our imagination and how engaging it can create possibilities and different scenarios based on our experiences. It gave us a pre-emptive problem solving skillset, so we could go out and problem solve and create imageries in our mind of what the possibilities are, what could happen, and then we’d problem solve those so we could lower anxiety, we could deal with situations. We’d almost be prepped and ready to do something just on the off chance it may happen. This process helps create an action plan and so an emotional tag and to categorise. This newer pathway is built from what we need to do. When the trigger gets fired this blueprint arises, we have this neural pathway to follow. That’s what our imagination was designed to do for us, that’s what it was there for, back from the earliest days of man. The same process is conducted when we physically do something or whether we create an imaginary outcome. So what I mean by that is, if we go out and do something physical like look for a new path, find a new track to follow, climb a new tree, do something, then our brain creates this neural pathway so that we can remember and we can do it again, we can replicate that.
We get the same neural pathway by imagining climbing that tree, following that new path. There isn’t any differentiation between the two neural pathways, they’re both just as efficient and effective as each other. In actual fact, the only real difference is the emotional tag that we get from physically doing something, the emotional association. So the mechanics behind that is we have an event: we assess it; we understand it; we label it with that emotion; we then categorise it so that we can remember it. That’s the makeup, the matrix of that process and, as I say, this process is no different whether we physically do something, or whether we imagine doing that something. That being said, if we can get the same effective emotion through the visualisation as we do through the association of doing it then there is no difference whatsoever. Where visualisation has a major advantage is the sustainability. We are often told that practice makes perfect right? Well, probably a better way of describing it and a more accurate way of describing it is perfect practice makes perfect. Because if we do something incorrectly and we practice that incorrect action, that incorrect technique, that becomes just as mentally imbedded in our neurology as something we’re doing right. Again, our brain doesn’t differentiate between doing something in a good technique and doing something in a bad technique; if we practice it often enough then we’re still learning that new habit.
So let me ask you a question, when you perform a skill how many times do you complete that skill perfectly? And out of 10 times would it be once, would it be twice, would it be five times, 10 times? Out of those 10 times, how many times is perfect, that’s replicable every single time? Not only how often is it perfect, how often is it identical? So are you performing that skill 10 times or are you performing 10 skills once? If you go and you physically learn a new skill or you learn a new routine, or you have a whole sequence of skills put together and you try and do that 10 times, how often would you be able to replicate that routine, that skill, that sequence to create a perfect imbedded neurological pathway? And even if you could replicate a skill almost identically, how soon before we become physically or emotionally fatigued? When we are fatigued what happens is that emotion that comes with that fatigue, that negativity, also gets attached to that neural pathway, to that blueprint. Remember, our neurological points of reference. Those reference points are based on all our senses, our physical senses: our sight, our sound, our emotions, our feelings. Visualisation isn’t a replacement for learning something, for doing something, the tangibility of learning and doing something, but what it is doing is allowing us to replicate on a more consistent basis and analyse and adjust without the fatigue associated and the negative emotions that come with that. This way the new neural pathway is being stimulated more consistently, more accurately, fatigue-free with less negativity and emotion associated to it, and in any situation: you can visualise in your lounge room in your undies, you still get the same neural pathways.
So how does visualisation work with the different styles? Traditionally when you go into a sporting organisation and you watch athletes training they’ll do one style of visualisation, and this is the same one I was talking about when I was an athlete that I just kind of unknowingly inherited and that was the disassociated kind of visualisation.
Disassociated visualisation is when you see yourself doing something. So what it is, you can be standing there watching yourself complete a routine, can do a specific skill or a sequence of skills. It’s you looking at you doing something. This kind of visualisation allows you to build a picture in your mind to see an action not an emotion. So you’re looking at the mechanics, the clinical look at you. You’re doing a skill then you can analyse what that skill is looking like, what you see is working, what you see isn’t working and what would you see you would do completely different. So that analytical look without the emotional attachment, without the emotional association, gives you that one step removed look at you and what you’re doing and what’s working and what’s not working.
The next kind of visualisation is obviously the opposite to that and that’s the associated visualisation. And this is where you visualise the skill, the routine, the sequence, almost looking through your own eyes. What you would see, you would hear, you would feel and you would sense when you were doing that set of skills or routine. So what happens here is that we’re getting the emotional association: what you would see, the crowd, the people, the equipment, whatever it be that you would see through your own eyes; what you hear, do you hear the crowd, do you hear your own breathing, do you hear the people cheering you along the side lines; and the feelings, the temperature, the adrenaline, the crowd’s emotions. All those kind of senses are being stimulated so you get that ownership, you get that association, you can feel it, there’s a tangibility to it. When we have this kind of emotional and sensory overload we take ownership of that skill, that routine or that sequence. It’s not clinical or mechanical, it’s part of us.
We also have a point-to-point visualisation. Now, the benefits of point-to-point, as it sounds, it goes from one point to the next point, so we’re building the sequentialisation of a routine, so from one skill to the next skill. And we create that momentum, that motion that goes with the visualisation. Now, this is important if you are putting a set of skills that you’ve learnt into a sequence or into a routine, having that point-to-point visualisation gives you the sense of start to finish. When we do point-to-point visualisation it’s always after we’ve learnt associated and disassociated, because we do point-to-point both associated and then disassociated, so we see the clinical mechanical perspective of a full routine or a full sequence, and then we get the emotional association and the feel to that routine or sequence.
Another visualisation technique is key point visualisation. This is a specific use visualisation process, it walks you through the learning process and learning pattern of something that you do or have done really, really well. So you go initially through the emotion of feeling how the success of doing something, something you’ve done really, really well, some process that’s worked for you, some result that you’ve got, some skillset that you’ve just learnt or learnt at some point, and you go through that in your mind, you picture yourself looking out of your own eyes, seeing what you would see, hearing what you hear and feeling what you would have felt at that particular time. So you’re almost back into that one time in your life. And then you step away from that and you learn what did I do, what worked there, what was the pattern that I had, what the neural point of reference that I got from that success? And then we look it as something that hasn’t worked, something that’s a habit built around not being successful and we cross-platform that success, that success pattern into the areas you’ve had issues. What this does is allow us to take what we’ve learnt, the skillset, the association and the emotion, and place it into the areas that’s not been working, so we overcome that, we replace the negative emotions, the negative memories with these positive emotions and positive memories, taking away the old neurological point of reference and replacing it with a far more desirable outcome, that is key point visualisation.
The next one we can use is internal patterning. We know our brain likes patterns, sequences and rhythms, it’s how we know what to expect, it’s what our brain does to know “Well, when I go through this process, this happens” or we listen to something and we get within a rhythm and we feel that that rhythm is pulling us along and driving us along. We’ve all got songs that we listen to that motivate us. An interesting point to note here is if we’re doing an endurance sport and we’re running or we’re swimming or doing something like that and we have music or a rhythm or a chant going on in our mind and our brain is engaged in that rhythm, that chant or that music, then it’s unlikely to want to break that rhythm to let us know that we’re in pain or to let us know that we’re fatigued. So having this kind of rhythm or this momentum going can help us block out pain, can help us block out negative thoughts when we’re going through some kind of endurance based training or competition. That’s just a sideline, just an important understanding of why our brain and how our brain associates to rhythm.
We can use this association to rhythm by building very specific routines and exercises around rhythm. So we can use these chants and these mantras within a rhythmic melody when we’re training, when we’re competing, when we’re building structure, when we’re building a strategy and our brain is far more likely to accept and adopt that rhythm and keep that process, so when we fire the right triggers that rhythm kicks in and it knows “I go from this point to that point, to that point, to that point”. So that creates momentum and pulls us along, making us less likely to stop or get deviated. This also allows us to create familiarity, and we know by creating familiarity we lower our anxiety, we’re more likely to feel comfortable and confident in a familiar place. When we go out to compete and naturally our anxiety rises, if we have a rhythm or a chant or a mantra that we methodically go through in our mind that’s going to help us lower our anxiety, create more sense of confidence and familiarity knowing what’s coming next, knowing what’s expected of me, knowing what I need to do because I’ve been here before, I’ve created this. We know that confidence is just a history of success and success breeds confidence, confidence breeds success. And so by creating this imagery in our brain, these multiple times that we’ve been through these routines, multiple times that we’ve performed these skills, we have that history of success that makes us feel far more comfortable and confident which makes us far more successful people.
And the last one I’m going to talk about in this session is technical visualisation. Now, this is a very, very specific kind of visualisation and it’s probably easier if I explain a scenario, rather than just the technical aspect of it. I have a couple of motor sport clients and when we go to the track I get them to either sit in their vehicle or sit on their bike and visualise going around the track. And as they go round the track, at each key point I get them to imagine they’re putting a flag into that point, they’re seeing themselves plant the flag into that point in the track, they’re telling themselves “When I get here, I am going to take this corner at this particular angle/lay the bike down heavy into this corner/open the throttle at this point”. So they’re giving themselves very specific and very technical directions. What we’re doing by visualising and placing the flag, hearing the flag going into the dirt or into the tarmac, is creating association. They’re creating an association where they come round that trigger of that corner, of the visualisation of that flag knows exactly what they need to do at that particular point. If you’re in a sport where split-second timing is vital, the difference between life and death, then you want to know that you’re not getting to that corner and then starting to evaluate. You want to get to that key point and it just happen, you’ve been there before, you’re comfortable, you can trust yourself, you’ve analysed and you’ve built a strategy and a programme, and you’ve gone round and you’ve laid this grid of where you need to be at each particular point, the speed you need to approach that corner, do you lay down at this point, do you open the accelerator or the throttle? Each time you build these specific and technical requirements and you embed them into that part of the track, you’re embedding them into your mind, into the pattern, into the blueprint that you’ve created, that neurological point of reference for that particular race track. So it’s a trigger-based process, based on very particular and very technical requirements.
So if we look at all of those different kinds of visualisation: we had disassociated and associated; we had point-to-point and key point; we had internal patterning; and we had technical visualisation. All these different kinds of visualisation have very specific outcomes based on what we’re trying to achieve, get the brain to see and visualise and buy into each one of these particular imageries we’re creating in our brain. Is it a sequence? Is it technical? Is it rhythm and patterns? Is it associated? Is it disassociated? All these kinds of visualisations have very key uses. Gone are the days where visualisation was just you watching yourself doing something so that you think “Okay, I’ve been here before, I’ve seen it”. Now you’re almost living it, you’re creating it; you’re creating a perfect blueprint, that perfect practice every time. Perfection is what you’re looking for, perfection is what we should be creating in our brain and perfection is what we should be embedding into our brain.
There is another form of visualisation that I teach all my athletes and that’s the 3D coach process, but I’m not going to go through that in this session because it is a really big process and designed very much for people who are very au fait and comfortable with the visualisation.
So the last part of what we were talking about was when is the right time to use the right kind of visualisation? Well, I always tell my athletes that they should visualise in some way every single day. Whether they’re training that day, whether they’ve got a day off, whether they’ve got a recovery session or whether they’re travelling, they need to stimulate and engage their brain into picturing that perfect performance, that perfect skill, that perfect routine, that perfect sequence, whatever it is that you are going to do, the perfect jump, the perfect swim. Whatever you are trying to achieve, that should be visualised every single day so that it becomes part and parcel of who you are, it becomes part and parcel of your familiarity so that you’re comfortable, you’re comfortable with what you’re achieving and what you’re going to achieve.
Rule of thumb is when you’re learning a new skill use a disassociated visualisation of patterning first of all. So you look for the technical, you look for how you’re building that skill from a mechanical perspective. So you try a skill, you attempt a skill or your coach will tell you how you want that skill to be, if you then close your eyes and you disassociate yourself from the person performing by watching yourself doing it, that one step removed, what you are doing is allowing your brain to see what you are expecting of it. When you’ve done it a few times and you feel “You know what, I’ve got this skill, I’ve kind of got this skill down, I know I can perform this skill” then you do the associated visualisation, so then you start that ownership process. You start to own that, you see what you would see, you’d hear what you would hear and you’d feel what you would feel. You get that. It’s part of you then, you absorb it into you and your body. That then becomes an emotion, you own that skill, that sequence, that routine. And as when I explained the point-to-point visualisation, it’s when you’re learning a sequence. I worked with some ice skaters, when they have a technical or they have an artistic routine, they’re two very different routines, they have two very different needs from a learning perspective. So having a point-to-point visualisation training programme will allow them to go through the technical routine and then to go through the artistic routine. We need to be able to that both associated and disassociated. First of all disassociated, so we see the skill sequence, the skill requirements, the technical requirements and then, when we feel comfortable with that, we do the associated, so we take ownership of that outcome, we take ownership of that routine from a mental perspective. The sequential process where we want to create that fluidity we bring in the internal patternings, so we have that rhythm, that mantra, the tunes that we use to keep us in that momentum to create a long term momentum. So if we’re a marathon runner, a marathon swimmer, we want to create that internal patterning, key words, key rhythms, mantras. Those kind of things are vital, the association between the imagery that we’re creating, the words that we’re using and the action that we’re achieving. And we want the specifics on the race track, we want to be at this angle going around that corner at this particular speed. The technical visualisation: the embedding of the flags, the directions, the verbal directions that “When I get here, this is what I am going to do”. Talking the positive, “I get to this point, I lay the bike over, this is what I will see, this is what I will be doing, this is the acceleration I’ll be having”. Those technical directions need to be firing really, really fast and not analysing at the time, just doing. You want to have done the ground work before, we want to embed those commands long before we get to that corner. If we get to that corner then start to try and evaluate, it’s over, we’re off the track. So we want to make sure that we get to that corner, it happens.
We know that much of our anxiety, much of our lack of confidence, much of our fears are created by the unknown. We’ve associated to a possible outcome, we have fears around what would happen if I don’t perform, what would happen if I don’t get selected, what would happen if I fall? All these ifs are what creates our anxiety, feeds our fears and the emotional monster that goes with that. Doing efficient and effective visualisation, creating that familiarity, creating that confidence and that comfort, enables us to deflate these anxieties, to manage the fears. We don’t want to dissipate the fear altogether, we want to make sure that we’re safe and healthy. So we want to be able to have that kind of fear, that caution, but without that caution controlling us. We need to manage the fears, manage the anxieties far more efficiently by being there before, by performing perfectly time after time after time after time. And we can do that perfectly every single time, 10 times, 20 times, 30 times, without fatigue, without physical fatigue or emotional fatigue, time after time by visualisation. We can achieve skills more consistently by thinking about them, seeing them and feeling them without having to perform them.
So that brings us to the end of yet another episode of Brain in the Game. Visualisation is something that is so incredibly vital for every single athlete to utilise, for every single coach to understand that it’s not just one-dimensional; it is multi-dimensional. There’s so many aspects to visualisation, there’s so many benefits of visualisation, it should be an integral part of every single athletes training programme. Visualisation enables athletes to create familiarity, the history of success, and to build their confidence. So I hope this has given you an understanding of how to use your brain and your imagination in a better way to repair and manage your emotions.
I will put the transcript and the show notes on our website, that’s www.braininthegame.com.au. If you sign up, put your email address there and pop it off to us we’ll send back the transcripts, we’ll send back a link to all the exercises we’ve done over this last seven series, and there’s an opportunity there for you to give us feedback. We would love you to jump onto iTunes, subscribe and hit all those stars because the higher you get us in the iTunes the more people get to hear us and the more feedback we get of what you guys are looking for. And if you’ve got a particular issue that you’re finding in your training, in your clubs or even in your sporting organisation, go to www.braininthegame.com.au hit the feedback icon and let us know. And so until the next training session, train smart and enjoy the ride.
My name’s Dave Diggle and I am the Mind Coach.
Copyright 2012-2022 Dave Diggle
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