Quit being that pipsqueak that complains about his lack of development…start lifting that heavy weight or START BELIEVING! It’ll happen…[an excerpt on “imagery”]
During our youth, we were told by others that “If you believe, you can achieve” or “If you can dream it, you can do it”, but how many of us actually believed in their statements? Whether it was folklore or perceived as a debauchery spewing from the lungs of others…the fact of the matter is that in reality, what they say is true!
But…how?
Placing so much trust in this previous statement could seem odd, but I don’t think it’s true…I KNOW IT’S TRUE! If you look to the left, you will see myself holding a weighted object on a piece of string. As the video continues, you see this object spinning in a circle…but then you notice my hand wasn’t moving…or was it?
As you watch the video, I am focused on the object, nothing else. Once I had focus on my object, I kept telling myself and imaging to myself “I want this object to go in a circle”…So while the object was in my hand I just imagined that the object was going to spin and then BOOM! It started to spin. But as I mentioned before, I wasn’t intentfully moving my hand, so to explain this low scaled phenomenon, I would place all focus on the topic “Imagery”.
With movement, if we practice imagery with the highest intent and as vivid as possible…there is a response by our body to send signals and stimulates the central nervous system that engages our bodies musculature to a certain degree that creates similarity to actually performing the movement in real life!
In my previous post, I discussed how imagery was the idea of seeing yourself doing a movement before performing the movement (within the context of weightlifting). This is one of the strongest tools for competitive athletes to helps them elevate their training to a new level. Imagine that part of your training doesn’t require having to be physiologically active…to allow your body to train and recover at the same time. The idea of imagery is to allow us to rehearse previous and future movements to have a better response for improved performance. This is the process I engage in before I approach the deadlift bar…I think about the weight already in my hands, the knurling scraping against my calluses and lifting that bar with fast and explosive speeds. My body is now firing off and thinking its done it before, so why couldn’t it do it again!
To practice this type of training, you want to be in a controlled and calm environment. You might want to even be in the place to which you plan to train to. There have been several instances that when I go to venues before I would compete, I would go to the platform I was going to lift, imagine myself in front of the crowd and seeing myself lifting with success. You can even do an internet search of your venue and be able to rehearse within the comfort of your own home.
Imagery doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Just spend 5-10 minutes a day in a secluded environment and just rehearse what you’re about to lift with vivid and detailed imagery. The more detailed…the more vivid…the more focused you are will help stimulate the body and become more realistic as well.
Are you going for a PR squat tomorrow? Are you trying to hit 225 for 10 reps on bench next week? Before you performance, spend some time working on imagery to help better anticipate the situation and to find more comfort with your performance. Because ultimately, your body doesn’t go where your mind has never been…