Role of mental training with “Imagery and NLP”

practices to get the peak performance in players

Dr.C.Veerender
Sports Psychologist, You & Me, counselling & P.D.Training Center, Hyderabad,
Telangana. India. drveerender@gmail.com, www.younme.co, 9440037291.
 
Abstract:
It is always a challenging situation for a sports person to face national and international
competitions. It’s because the result in the field is unpredictable. It is common not to be
successful, irrespective of practice sessions, having great coaches supervision, successful
players suggestions, having great belief in self to perform well. In addition to training the
body, sportsperson needs mental training to perform well in the field. The brain the top
portion of the body where training is deposited, energies are channelized should be trained to
excel along with the body it is housed. Slowly the coaches, players started realizing the role
of counseling for players in enhancing the performance not only after the injury to recover
but also in regular sports performances. 
Without giving the psychological training to be tough, mental picture of best performance to
happen in the competition and taking the challenge in the competitions, one can’t say the
training of a athlete or a player is finished. Apart from the training on skill, technique and
physical fitness the mental toughness and visualization of best version of a player is a must
to the players. It is proved by many a times by international athletes, many times Olympic
medalist Michel phelphs, tennis player roger federer, tiger woods etc., practicing
visualization is the key in their success. This paper deals with one of the most effective
methods i.e., imagery and NLP visualization, how they helps the players to give the peak
performance in the competitions.

Key words: imagery, visualization, performance

Introduction:

Among sport performers and coaches, imagery is a popular and well-accepted strategy for
enhancing various aspects of performance. The importance of this strategy is reflected in
anecdotal reports of successful athletes.

Descriptive research also suggests that imagery is frequently used by the best athletes. In their
study of the elements of success, Orlick and Partington (1988) found that 99 per cent of Canadian
Olympic athletes surveyed reported using imagery as a preparation strategy. Furthermore, higher-
level athletes or those with more experience typically report greater use of the strategy than their
lower-level or less-experienced counterparts (e.g. Barr and Hall, 1992; Cumming and Hall,
2002a, 2002b; Hall et al., 1998; salmon et al., 1994).

Not surprisingly, imagery has become a widely researched topic within the field of sport
psychology as evidenced by numerous published studies, in sports psychology books, the
chapters in (e.g. Callow and Hardy, 2005; Moran, 2004; Murphy et al., 2008) an entire book
(Morris et al., 2005), and the introduction of a journal devoted to publishing imagery research in
the physical domain (Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity.)

Since many years that all the successful people talk about visualization as being a key to
their success.  But if it works so well why aren’t more people experiencing personal success?
There are a few reasons :

 Consistency – no matter what training a person is involved in consistency is the key.

 Specifics – I can tell you to visualize your personal goals, but without knowing the
quality of that image, i.e. size, shape, color, focus, sounds, feelings, etc, I can’t help you
fine tune it so that it is real.

 Association – When we visualize a memory of something that actually happened,

there is a different “quality” to it, then visualizing a future event.

Since the beginning of time man has been intrigued by his ability to see, with his eyes closed,
the same detailed images that reflect the reality he sees with his eyes open. Man has been
mystified by the power the mental image possesses to affect the body, mind and matter in the
outside world. For thousands of years, man has intuitively known that whatever he can
vividly create in his mind will, like magic, manifest itself into a concrete reality.

Until recently, man has not had the knowledge to logically and scientifically explain the
power of this phenomenon. Without such knowledge, this power has been ascribed to
superstition, the occult and coincidence.

Visual images and sensory impressions generated by the brain are holographic in nature.
Every image and impression is composed of electromagnetic energy that consists of matter.
Vividness and sensory detail increase the energy and power of the visualized image. In
essence, what one visualizes is real. The body and mind interpret visual images and sensory
impressions as reality and react to them accordingly.

Other most important tool available for the sports fraternity to improve the performance is
NLP method helps to influence the human mind in such a way that it starts to manage the
internal states of the mind. The state of mind of the individual is an essential factor in
bringing out his or her best performance. A lot of sports performers spend a lot of their time
focusing on improving their fitness and technical ability and often the mental element is
neglected, even at world class level.  
  Invoking of states in the mind can help bring out the best in a player. Coaches generally
know their players very well and therefore have an idea about what is the best thing to bring
out the peak performance in a player. The use of NLP has had a significant impact in the area
of sports performance.
People like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, Greg Norman, Jimmy White,
Michael Vaughan are among many highly successful sports performers who use NLP
techniques consistently to achieve excellent results.

Michael Phelps is already the most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 medals to his
name including 18 gold medals. he is using the power of guided imagery to prepare for
success.

Peak performance:

1. Performing from one’s highest intention: It is the ability to align one’s attention to
one’s intention, to do what one believes in and values; it gives meaning to the reason
why a person does sport.
2. Working hard: Hardwork gives the confidence and mental edge. mind and body
connection gets by hardwork.
3. Setting goals: setting goals based on process goals, working to get outcome goals, A
goal is something that a sportsperson wants. In other words, there is a distance
between ‘what is’ and ‘what can be’. There is a present state and a desired state. To
maintain overall direction, every goal should contribute to a higher-level goal
4. Trusting and inner knowing: believing the techniques practicing and challenging
the limitations inside of the brain. The belief a person has about himself plays a major
role in how he will perform. A person with natural talent, physical fitness and
competent skills will not necessarily perform to his potential if he has a limited belief
of his capability. Talent plays a role but it is not enough. According to Cohen and
Breen (2007), it is not superior talent that separates champions from contenders but
superior ‘nerve’. Trusting and inner knowing is embedded in a person’s beliefs.
5. Distinguishing between self confidence and self esteem: What we do(doing),
worth are given to him at birth(human being ness)Person can be evaluated and
criticized for his doing.
6. Dealing with setbacks: Dealing with setbacks (resilience) is seen as bouncing back
from injury, disappointment or defeat. This links up with inner knowing and trusting
and the distinction between self-confidence and self-esteem. A player, who can deal
 with setbacks effectively, will realise that ‘failure’ is not about him as a person
(being) but him as a player (doing).
7. Managing anxiety and confidence: The ability to control the anxiety and use it to
their advantage distinguishes the elite athlete from the ordinary. Being relaxed during
the performance is a characteristic of peak performance. The relaxed sports man trusts
himself in every situation
8. Using language effectively in self talk and communication: Self-talk may be
defined as the internal dialogue that a person has with himself. The frequency of self-
talk develops a mind-set within which the athlete performs (Bunker, Williams &
Zissner, 1993). Self-talk in sport affects behaviour and should be rational and
positive. When self-talk is used to restructure cognitions and to alter irrational
thoughts, it can be referred to as positive self-talk. Irrational thoughts can lead to
catastrophic ideas.
9. Preparing mentally: As aspects of mental preparation, concentration and imagery
will be described. Concentration is the ability to focus the mind on one source of
information, often to the exclusion of others. Nideffer (1993) refers to concentration
as that which one attends to. A person concentrates all the time unless he is asleep.
Concentration involves three dimentions (Winter, 1992): • direction: On what is the
person concentrating? • intensity: Is the person concentrating fully? • duration: How
long is the concentration span?
10. Managing flow state.: The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation where
the person is fully immersed in what he is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at
times, characterised by a feeling of great freedom, enjoyment, fulfilment and skill.
When a person is in flow state, temporal concerns are typically ignored. The idea of
flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). To
achieve flow state, a balance must be found between the challenge of the task and the
skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur.

II. Methods to empower the players to perform better in the

competitions:

1. Mental Imagery: Imagery is a mental practice that has been widely used for the
acquisition of sporting skills.

2. NLP visualisation: Neuro linguistic programming: Neuro-Linguistic

Programming (NLP) is an approach for changing thoughts, feelings, and behavior

1. Mental Imagery:
Imagery is described as an experience that mimics real experience, and involves using
a combination of different sensory modalities in the absence of actual perception. White and
Hardy explained that “we can be aware of ‘seeing’ an image, feeling movements as an image,
or experiencing an image of smell, taste or sounds without experiencing the real thing”
(1998: 389), Another commonality among definitions is the notion that individuals are self-
aware and conscious during the imagery experience (Richardson, 1969). For example, White
and Hardy distinguished imagery from dreaming because the individual is awake and
conscious when imaging.
Recent studies in neuroscience have shown that when we imagine ourselves doing a
particular habit it activates many of the same regions in our brain as when we are physically
doing that same habit. And one recent study found that when experienced pianists practice
playing a new song in their heads, it improves their performance and accuracy.
In this way, visualizing in our mind’s eye can be an effective way to prepare ourselves for a
situation before it plays out in the real world.
When athletes imagine themselves performing a certain way, they are mentally preparing
themselves to act that same way once they step onto the field. For example, a golfer or
basketball player will often visualize their shot before actually attempting it.

When using mental imagery, many sports psychologists recommend the following advice:

 A.First person perspective – Try to imagine how you want to act (and what you
want to happen) from a first person perspective. Experience the situation from your own
eyes as if it is happening right now.
 B.Make it realistic – Try to imagine the situation as it would happen in the real
world. For example, picture yourself wearing your own jersey and playing at your own
home field. The closer your imagery is to the real situation, the better your mind will be
prepared.
 C.Focus on process, not just results – Try to imagine the whole process from
beginning to end. Don’t just skip to the soccer ball going into the goal, see everything: you
running down the field → teammate passing it to you → you moving past a player → you
seeing an open spot in the goal → you kicking the ball. Preparing yourself to act the right
way and make the right decisions is key.
 D.Evoke multiple senses – Try to imagine the experience from multiple senses. What
you would see, hear, feel, taste, smell, etc.? The more senses you can evoke, the more
clearer the experience will be in your mind, and the more of an imprint it will make on
your brain.
All successful athletes make use of mental imagery in one form or another. They are masters
at seeing their success in their mind before they make it into a reality.

Mental imagery can be especially effective for injured players who aren’t capable of physical
practice but still want to keep their instincts sharp. Another way a lot of athletes mentally
prepare themselves these days is by watching lots of video footage of themselves, especially
comparing their good performances vs. bad performances. Video footage can be a great aid to
creating effective mental imagery.

2. Neuro-Linguistic Programming: NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Neuro

refers to your neurology; Linguistically refers to language; programming refers to how that
neural language functions. In other words, learning NLP is like learning the language of your
own mind!.
Visualization is much more than a random daydream or just “seeing” yourself succeed.  It is
an extremely focused intention for improving personal performance. Let’s make this simpler
with an example.

Have you ever tried to communicate with someone who didn’t speak your language, and they
couldn’t understand you? The classic example of this is when someone goes out to a
restaurant in a Foreign country and they think they ordered chicken, but when the food shows
up, it turns out they actually asked for a duck.

This is the kind of relationship that most of us have with our own unconscious mind. We
might think we are “ordering up” more money, a happy, healthy relationship, peace with our
family members, and being able to stick to a healthy diet…but unless that’s what shows up,
then something is probably getting lost in translation.

In NLP, we have a saying: the conscious mind is the goal setter, and the unconscious mind is
the goal-getter. Your unconscious mind is not out to get you–rather, it’s out TO GET FOR
YOU whatever you want in life. However, if you don’t know how to communicate what you
want properly, it will keep bringing something you never wanted out of the kitchen.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is like a user’s manual for the brain, and taking an NLP
training is like learning how to become fluent in the language of your mind so that the ever-
so-helpful “server” that is your unconscious will finally understand what you actually want
out of life.

 
why we need NLP for the sports person, when they have trained on skill and fitness

There are many factors that influence sporting abilities; genetic inheritance, fitness
levels, technical skills and our mental abilities. All sports performers will give a lot of
their time on their fitness and game skills, the education on the psychological side of
the game is often neglected even at a world class or Olympic level of performance.

Most sportspeople have experienced times when they are 'in the zone', where they
are performing at their high-pressure situation, they give best in what some describe
as a state of “Flow”. If you ask someone- how they achieve flow many will say things
like “I don’t know it JUST happens”. What this means is that it is an unconscious
process and it is beyond of their normal conscious awareness.

In modern sports the ability to access these flow states and optimise mental skills
can mean the difference between winning and just competing!  
  In sports there are many ways that NLP can be used to optimise genetic, fitness
and technical abilities. NLP is often the difference that makes the difference.
 

NLP allows people to learn and adopt the strategies, techniques and physiology
used by our sporting role models to achieve excellence often in a fraction of a second.

By using NLP techniques in sports we literally teach people to be able to go into

'flow states' to consciously enter states of peak sports performance as and when
needed. You can use NLP to maintain the motivation to train so as to take your skill
sets to the next level, you can learn to “get over” mistakes and to learn from errors
rather than dwell upon them and you can learn to have the confidence to compete to
the best of your ability. 

Whether you are an aspiring Sachin, Sania Mirza,Tiger Woods, Paula Radcliffe,

Lewis Hamilton, David Beckham or someone who plays sports simply for fun NLP is
used by people even if they do it consciously or unconsciously.

It will either be used against you or you can learn to use it for you and when you
learn to use NLP with purpose you can really begin to play your sports at a new level.

How this NLP works:

NLP is often proposed as a study of the way in which human beings structure their
perceptions, it creates a framework that can be used to analyze study, reprogram, and
program a person’s behaviour, lifestyle and attitude. Body posture, breathing, gestures
towards the eyes, ears, body, eye movements and language patterns are all elements that are
used to trigger the unconscious mind in NLP.
High-achievers and peak performers think, act and feel differently from average people. They
have superior mental strategies in place that help them learn faster and better and perform to
their potential more often(veerender c.,icsm2018). Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
was created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 1970's.

Here's what you can learn from NLP:

 Change negative thinking to positive
 Stop self-limiting thinking patterns
 Increase energy
 Remove mental blocks
 Powerful visualization techniques
 Drop unwanted habits
 Create instant rapport
 Improve communication
 Remove unwanted, negative emotions
 Create smart learning and retention strategies
 NLP sports psychology(veerender c,2018, lap lambert publishing) is based on the concept of
bringing out the peak performance in an individual by improving their coordination and
mental concentration. NLP for sports( veerender c, 2017, 2018)utilizes the five senses which
are auditory, visual, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory senses. By utilizing these five senses
to influence the mind this can help to enhance the performance of the individual.  NLP for
sports provides a method where a person can perceive the world around them in a certain way
and with the use of sensory-based language, it is the best way to influence the human mind.
When it comes to team work and coordination in sports, use of certain words that represent a
sensation can give sports people that extra edge that is required to win. –

3.The Olympians experiences of visualization:

As Olympic athletes gear up for 2106 Rio Olympic Games, many athletes are following the
successful blueprints laid out by their 2014 winter Olympic counterparts who competed
successfully in Sochi.

Canadian bobsledder Lyndon Rush credited imagery with helping him keep his head in the
game throughout the long, arduous four years of training between the 2010 and 2014
Olympic Games.

RUSH: “I’ve tried to keep the track in my mind throughout the year. I’ll be in the shower or
brushing my teeth. It just takes a minute, so I do the whole thing or sometimes just the
corners that are more technical. You try to keep it fresh in your head, so when you do get
there, you are not just starting at square one. It’s amazing how much you can do in your
mind.”

Emily Cook, veteran American freestyle skier and three-time Olympian, described how her
specific imagery scripts and mental rehearsal involving all the senses have helped her
maintain longevity in her sport..She says “Visualization, for me, doesn’t take in all the
senses. You have to smell it. You have to hear it. You have to feel it, everything.”

Nicole Detling, a sports psychologist with the United States Olympic team explains the
importance of having a multi-sensory approach when visualizing.“The more an athlete can
image the entire package, the better it’s going to be.”

Michael Phelps is already the most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 medals to his
name including 18 gold medals. The 2016 Rio Olympics will be Phelps’ fifth Olympic
Games and, once again, he is using the power of guided imagery to prepare for success.

Bob Bowman has been Phelps’ coach since he was a teenager and has included mental
imagery or visualization as a part of Phelps’ mental training.

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