Mental Rehearsal Key to Improving Athlete Performance

“Physical repetition alone will not get the job done in mastering a skill and taking an athlete or team to the next level; imagery is equally, if not more important.” (Mallett). Many people believe that although the sport is played with the body, it is won by the mind. Not surprisingly sport performers increasingly turn to psychology in an effort to gain a winning edge over their rivals. In this sense, mental imagery, or the ability to represent the minds information that is not currently being perceived, is widely used by athletes to enhance their performance in competition. (Moran). Many sports such as golf, tennis, and swimming, not only require physical skills, but also a strong mental game. Most coaches say that sports are only 10% physical and 90% mental. An extra edge, the metal edge, can be extremely crucial in sports where hundredths of second or tenths of an inch separate the champions form the mediocre athletes, thus many athletes are turning towards mental imagery to take their sports performance to the next level. (Plessinger). Although physical training alone is effective on enhancing sports performance, when combined properly with mental imagery and visualization can amplify an athlete’s performance to levels that could not be attained with physical training alone.

Mental imagery can best be defined as an experience that mimics real experience, and involves using a combination of different sensory modalities in the absence of the actual perception. (Quinton). In short, mental imagery is imagining performing an action in the absence of physical movement or practice. Mental imagery also known as visualization can be either positive or negative in nature, and thus effect the desired results in a positive or negative ...

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