scholarly journals Mental Imagery and Self Hypnosis in Sports Performance

Author(s):  
Dr. Kishore Mukhopadhyay

Self hypnosis and mental imagery are two sides of a coin, specially in case of modern sports. Hypnosis of oneself and mental imagery are totally immersive multi-sensory procedure that associates with numerous senses to create as a mental image and process it in absent of external stimuli. In the sport situation, imagery has been with a state in which person imagine while effecting abilities to deal with the future duty or improve performance capacity. Scientific analyses have stated that imagery increases performance in motor stimuli. Routines mental practice play an important role in sports and games, not only for the acquisition of motor skills, but also for preparation and sport injuries rehabilitation. Imagery techniques in sport are used for different purposes, as outlined by the process of self hypnosis and Model of Imagery Use in Sports, to improve skill acquisition, motivation, and sport confidence and to reduce anxiety.. Clinical sport hypnosis can help athletes acquire certain cognitive, psychological, behavioral and affective qualities so that their physical and mental capabilities are improved. According Wikipedia, sports hypnosis is defined as the use of hypnotherapy with athletes in order to improve sporting performance. Others define sport hypnosis as a form of mental training which can contribute to enhancing athletic performance. . It has been shown that different forms and functions of imagery prove to be effective for the above-mentioned functions depending on the characteristics of different sports and the expertise level of athletes. The present study reviews systematically the findings of other reports on various aspects of mental imagery and self hypnosis in the field of sports.

Athletes of the highest level in many sports (athletics, football, baseball, tennis, golf, rugby, skiing, gymnastics, swimming, basketball etc.) talk about the importance of visualising technical execution both during the training period and in competition (during warm-ups, during breaks in official games, before throws, jumps, free kicks etc.). Visualisation techniques can improve motor skills, grow muscle strength, increase selfconfidence, attention concentration and decrease anxiety. Through the use of imagery, pain management, endurance, performance motivation and physical performance can also be enhanced in athletes. To achieve the best results, visualisation techniques should include the five major senses (touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste) and should consider key aspects such as perspective, emotion, environment, task and timing. Mental rehearsal (or visualisation) is powerful because the subconscious processes the experience as a real one (by firing those neurons that are responsible for skill acquisition), makes the person calmer and more adapted to stressful situations, and can speed up the learning process in athletes and not only. One hour of mental training a day in 6-10 sequences has a special benefit that cannot be obtained by any other means. By applying both guided imagery techniques and practice, athletes design their mental road maps for success.


Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Fridland

AbstractThis paper provides an account of the strategic control involved in skilled action. When I discuss strategic control, I have in mind the practical goals, plans, and strategies that skilled agents use in order to specify, structure, and organize their skilled actions, which they have learned through practice. The idea is that skilled agents are better than novices not only at implementing the intentions that they have but also at forming the right intentions. More specifically, skilled agents are able formulate and modify, adjust and adapt their practical intentions in ways that are appropriate, effective, and flexible given their overall goals. Further, to specify the kind of action plans that are involved in strategic control, I’ll rely on empirical evidence concerning mental practice and mental imagery from sports psychology as well as evidence highlighting the systematic differences in the cognitive representations of skills between experts and non-experts. I’ll claim that, together, this evidence suggests that the intentions that structure skilled actions are practical and not theoretical, that is, that they are perceptual and motor and not abstract, amodal, or linguistic. Importantly, despite their grounded nature, these plans are still personal-level, deliberate, rational states. That is, the practical intentions used to specify and structure skilled actions are best conceived of as higher-order, motor-modal structures, which can be manipulated and used by the agent for the purpose of reasoning, deliberation, decision-making and, of course, the actual online structuring and organizing of action.


1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Missiuna

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) demonstrate coordination difficulties during the learning of novel motor skills; no previous studies, however, have investigated their ability to learn and then generalize a new movement. This study compared 24 young children with DCD with 24 age-matched control children (AMC) during the early stages of learning a simple aiming task. Children with DCD were found to perform more poorly than their peers on measures of acquired motor skill, and to react and move more slowly at every level of task performance. The effect of age and its relationship to practice of the task was also different within each group. The groups did not differ, however, in their rate of learning, or in the extent to which they were able to generalize the learned movement. Children with DCD sacrificed more speed than the AMC group when aiming at a small target, but the effects of amplitude and directional changes were quite similar for each group. The implications of these findings are discussed.


1982 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Dean Ryan ◽  
Jeff Simons

To investigate the mental imagery aspect of mental rehearsal, 80 male traffic officers from the California Highway Patrol learned a novel balancing task during a single session. Based on a pretest questionnaire, subjects were categorized as imagers, nonimagers, or occasional imagers and assigned to one of six groups accordingly: imagers asked to use imagery in mental rehearsal, imagers asked to try not to use imagery, nonimagers asked not to use imagery, nonimagers asked to try to use imagery, physical practice, or no practice. It was hypothesized that a person's preferred cognitive style would prove most effective for use in mental rehearsal and that using another style would cause a decrement in learning. Improvement scores indicated no differences between subjects who initially reported typically using imagery and those reported typically not using it, but groups asked to use imagery in mental rehearsal were superior to those asked not to (p<.001). Overall, physical practice was better than the grouped mental rehearsal conditions, and both were better than no practice. Subjects reporting strong visual imagery were superior to those with weak visual images (p<.03), and those reporting strong kinesthetic imagery were superior to those with weak kinesthetic images (p<.03). Regardless of one's typical cognitive style, the use of vivid imagery appears quite important for enhancement of motor performance through mental rehearsal.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Adi-Japha ◽  
Haia Abu-Asba

Purpose The current study tested whether the difficulties of children with specific language impairment (SLI) in skill acquisition are related to learning processes that occur while practicing a new skill or to the passage of time between practice and later performance. Method The acquisition and retention of a new complex grapho-motor symbol were studied in 5-year-old children with SLI and peers matched for age and nonverbal IQ. The children practiced the production of the symbol for 4 consecutive days. Retention testing took place 10 days later. Results Children with SLI began each practice day slower than their peers but attained similar levels of performance by its end. Although they increased their performance speed within sessions more than their peers, they did not retain their learning as well between sessions. The loss in speed was largest in the 10-day retention interval. They were also less accurate, but accuracy differences decreased over time. Between-session group differences in speed could not fully be accounted for based on fine motor skills. Conclusions In spite of effective within-session learning, children with SLI did not retain the new skill well. The deficit may be attributed to task forgetting in the presence of delayed consolidation processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew E Clark ◽  
Kayla McEwan ◽  
Candice J Christie

There has been a recent increase in constraints-led training to assist the development of technical and cognitive skill in sports. While the benefits of constraints-led training appear obvious, the evidence for this type of training is not clear. Therefore, a systematic review of the literature was conducted to establish the effectiveness of this approach to training within interceptive sports. Four databases (Google Scholar, JURN, Mendeley and Science Direct) were searched for journal articles focused on skill acquisition within interceptive sports. A methodological and reporting quality assessment was done to determine the quality of each article. Eighteen articles were selected for review. The results of these two quality assessments revealed poor quality scores for the majority of the studies. However, 77.7% of the studies found a positive effect in skill acquisition following manipulation in training protocol; therefore, the implementation of the constraints-led approach within interceptive sport can be advocated. Key methodological structures were identified as well as aspects of methodology that should be avoided to ensure reliable results for future studies. Further research is required to determine the effectiveness of constraints-led training on interceptive sporting performance.


GYMNASIUM ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol XVII (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Mihaela Cristuță

Posture expresses the way in which the body receives external stimuli and gets ready to react, constantly adapting to the demands, according to the difficulty and to the individual's motor skills. The aim of this study is to educate the correct body posture through specific physical therapy means. The hypotheses presume that: by performing a specific assessment, one can spot the bad postures that are frequently adopted by school children; through specific intervention programs, one can educate, correct, and form a correct posture reflex. The objectives were to: assess the school children in order to spot physical deficiencies; to educate a correct posture and to form a correct posture reflex. The research methods were established according to the objectives. In the end, it can be concluded that this research  regarding the education of posture in school children has contributed to the prevention of instalment of physical deficiencies and to their correction, and the intervention measures were effective in educating the correct body posture.


Author(s):  
S.B. DeMauro ◽  
M. Burkhardt ◽  
A. Wood ◽  
K. Nilan ◽  
E.A. Jensen ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND: Timely development of early motor skills is essential for later skill development in multiple domains. Infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have significant risk for developmental delays. Early motor skill development in this population has not been described. The aim of the present study was to characterize motor skill acquisition at 3 and 6 months corrected age (CA) and assess trajectories of skill development over this time period in infants with severe BPD. METHODS: We performed a single-center, retrospective descriptive study. Motor skills were categorized as present and normal, present but atypical, or absent at 3 and 6 months CA. Logistic regression was used to identify clinical characteristics associated with negative trajectories of skill acquisition. RESULTS: Data were available for 232 infants and 187 infants at 3 and 6 months CA, respectively. Ten motor skills were present and normal in 5–44%(range) of subjects at 3 months. Nineteen motor skills were present and normal in 1–63%(range) of subjects at 6 months. Significant postural asymmetry was noted throughout the study period. Loss of skills and worsening asymmetries over time were common. Exposure to sedating medications was significantly associated with poor development. CONCLUSION: We report delays in motor skill acquisition and postural asymmetries in infants with severe BPD at both 3 and 6 months CA. The association between sedating medications and poor development suggests that efforts to limit these exposures may lead to improved development. Targeted interventions to facilitate early motor development may improve outcomes of this high-risk population.


1993 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 126
Author(s):  
E. Hansen ◽  
T. Weiss ◽  
L. Beyer ◽  
R. Rost
Keyword(s):  

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