Athletic performance has made incredible strides over the past decade. At the elite level, vast teams of specialists support athletes to be faster, stronger, and more dynamic. In the ultra-competitive sports landscape, spending millions of dollars on performance has become the status quo.
So, how can teams best leverage these investments to stand out from their competition? In this article, we’ll dive into the next frontier of high-performance and how staff can support athletes to achieve their best in-competition results.
Enter Visualization Training
For decades, the best athletes have been utilizing visualization techniques to help them play at their best when it matters the most. Visualization, also known as imagery training, is the process of mentally rehearsing specific skills and competitive scenarios. Visualization can be the next best thing to in-game experience. However, in contrast to in-game experience, visualization enables the player to control every variable throughout and allows for repetition without additional wear and tear on an athlete’s body.
Below is a video of former NFL running back, Reggie Bush discussing why Drew Brees’ visualization routine contributed to his greatness and likely Hall of Fame career:
However, as impactful as visualization has proven to be, its utilization across teams is still quite low, particularly at the collegiate level and below. In our experience working with a variety of Division I teams, most athletes don’t have a dedicated visualization training routine. While many athletes will agree that visualization is important, maybe only 3-5 players per team will actually engage in it on a regular basis.
This begs the question: Why is engagement so low?
We believe there are two reasons for this: social norms and skill difficulty.
Starting with social norms, sports are often ego driven and it is socially rewarded to be mentally tough. The fields of sports psychology and mental training have struggled to gain mainstream adoption due to existing stigmas. Many athletes believe it is “weak” to seek support in this area and that “good athletes” are naturally mentally strong. Additionally, many athletes don’t understand the full breadth of sports psychology and mainly view it as just sport-specific therapy.
Regarding skill difficulty, visualization can be challenging to perform initially in an unguided setting. Athletes may not know what to visualize, struggle to conjure up mental images, or get easily distracted. These obstacles can create an underwhelming experience, leading many athletes to forgo further practice.
How to Implement Visualization Training Across Your Teams
In the following, we’ll address how to overcome previously laid out challenges and successfully drive increased adoption of visualization among your athletes.
Create a Culture of Visualization
Team culture often starts with the coaching staff, then with team leaders, and later trickles down across the rest of the team. When looking to influence team culture, it is essential to gain buy-in from the coaching staff and team leaders. To implement this, it may begin with bringing in an expert consultant, such as an experienced mental performance expert, or facilitating focused conversations among existing staff.
In the context of building a culture of visualization, the goal is to drive buy-in of its benefits and introduce practical ways to get started. As you roll out visualization practices teamwide, it is beneficial to lead a team through shared visualization experiences. This could involve a coach or staff member guiding the team in a group visualization in meetings or before/after practice. These shared experiences will help build the habit of visualization among players, which leads to increased utilization of self-lead practices later on.
Provide Guided Imagery Training
As discussed, visualization can be challenging to practice on one’s own. Guided imagery sessions can greatly improve the ease of practice and overall effectiveness. Guided imagery is when an athlete is led through a visualization either by spoken word or a written script. Our research has shown that spoken word or audio recordings are generally more effective as athletes can close their eyes to fully immerse themselves.
To implement guided imagery training, you can provide your athletes with an audio-based visualization resource or offer access to sessions with a mental performance provider. The first method can be more accessible and approachable, while the latter can offer more personalized support. In either case visualization sessions should be specific, performance oriented, and cover a wide range of competitive scenarios. It is also important to guide athletes to visualize both good outcomes and moments of adversity. No game is ever perfect and practicing how an athlete will overcome adversity can better prepare them for competitive situations.
Introducing the Poiz App
We may be a little biased, but the Poiz app is the easiest and most effective visualization resource for teams to implement at scale. Poiz provides athletes with on-demand access to sport and position specific visualization sessions.
• Personalized Audio Sessions:
Each Poiz session adapts to an athlete’s current state of mind and is designed to activate the all so elusive “Flow State,” where athletes feel and play at their best. Additionally the Poiz app is the only product on the market to support sport and position specific content for all major collegiate sports. For example, this means a football quarterback and defensive back will be led through different competitive situations appropriate for their position.
• Bulk User Access and Management:
The Poiz app makes it easy to provide access to an entire team at one time. It’s as simple as sending a link to your athletes. Additionally, content access can be customized on a per team basis, ensuring a streamlined experience. The Poiz app automatically onboards and educates athletes on how to best utilize visualization training.
• Created by Top Mental Performance Experts:
The content powering the Poiz app has been developed by top mental performance coaches. Together, our team has over 30 years of sports coaching experience and has worked with top professional and college athletes. For each new sport we add, we consult top coaches at the D1 or professional level to ensure we nail the nuances of each sport. With Poiz, you can trust the high-quality of our training.