What the research shows…
When we introduce athletes to the Missing Playbook™, some of the ideas introduced will require no further explanation or proof of their soundness because they are familiar to practically everyone. Other ideas here introduced are new, and for that very reason many students of this philosophy may hesitate to accept them as sound. But once they become aware of the research behind the philosophy of the Missing Playbook™, their hesitancy comes to a screeching halt! Athletes and coaches can’t deny that mental training really does work.
In the 80’s a study was conducted by the Soviets in their preparation for the Olympic Games that proved the mental side of sports can unlock your physical potential. Those who made the greatest strides spent the majority of their time (75 percent) on the mental aspects of sports. The least progress was achieved by the athletes who exclusively worked on the physical training. By dedicating time to mental training, you will be able to spend less time in your physical training – and when you do work out on the practice field, you’ll be training smarter and more efficiently. In essence, you’ll be getting more out of less.
Here are just a few of the studies that have convinced us that when it comes to athletic achievement, mental training is as important as pumping iron.
- Hunter College – 72 players from eight college basketball teams participated in a study which they worked on the mental side of shooting free throws. One group began each day’s basketball practice with a relaxation technique, followed by visualization or mental rehearsal in which they imagined every detail of their foul shooting: they pictured preparing for the shot at the free throw line, bouncing the ball a few times, raising their shooting arm with the ball balanced in their palm, bending at the knees, and releasing the ball toward the basket. Using this technique, the shooting accuracy of these athletes improved by 7 percent – a change so significant that coaches reported that the better shooting produced eight additional wins during the season. These athletes were hooked up to sensors that measured their neuromuscular activity during mental training. It showed that the same muscles used in free-throw shooting were activated during the practice of imagery. Thus, on a subtle level, the body itself was actually going through the motions of free-throw shooting.
- 1991 study found that there was no age barrier to visualization. The research involved 120 seventh-grade students who played field hockey, some of whom combined relaxation plus imagery with their physical practice. The students in the relaxation/imagery group improved their accuracy in hitting filed-hockey targets by a startling 160 percent! Those who participated only in physical practice improved, too, but by less than half as much (a 70 percent improvement).
- Researchers at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado enlisted thirty college-age golfers, who were asked to work on their putting each day for a week. One group was instructed to visualize sinking each putt just before tapping the ball toward the hole. They were told to picture the entire process – from the backswing before the ball is struck to the ball rolling into the center of the cup. A second group was instructed to do the same, but with one change: in their imagination, they were asked to picture the ball veering to the left or the right just as it approached the hole, stopping just inches from the cup. A third group only practiced putting, without doing any visualization. When the week was over, the students in the first group improved their putting accuracy by 30 percent; by comparison, the group who did no visualizing but physically practiced their putting showed improvements as well, by 11 percent. Most intriguing, the middle group – those who pictured the golf ball straying off course, away from the cup – experienced a worsening of their putting; their accuracy declined by 21 percent over the course of the week. They had pictured themselves putting poorly – and they did.
- Harvard University – researchers implemented a sports mental training program incorporating meditation techniques. After five weeks participants had cut 14.41 milliseconds off their response time to game-related stimuli. That’s enough time to allow you to get to a tennis serve that you’d ordinarily miss.
- Stanford University – imagery research has clearly demonstrated that three-dimensional visualized pictures can create dramatic and measurable physiological responses – from micro muscular activity to changes in breathing – identical to those that occur when athletes actually perform their sport.
- Journal of Sports Psychology – weight lifters were asked to visualize themselves lifting a 25-pound dumbbell. During this process electromyographic (EMG) measurements of their biceps were taken, which provided a record of the electrical activity associated with muscle movements. The result: during visualization, these men experienced significant biceps activity when compared to baseline recordings.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger was a pioneer in using his mind to help sculpt his body. In the 1960s and early 1970s he became an early proponent of visualization, picturing his biceps as mountains and imagining his calves just the way he wanted them to be. His workouts were consistently preceded by visualization sessions in which he would use his mind as an ally in shaping his body.
- Skier Jean-Claude Killy had an injury that prevented him from practicing prior to a big race; as a result, his sole preparation for the race was through visualization. He repeatedly skied the course in his mind – and when the time came to actually navigate down the slopes, he skied what he described as one of the best races of his life.
- Jack Nicklaus has told the story of the elaborate visualization process he has used for decades. Every aspect of his game is rehearsed in his mind before he ever approaches the first tee – from the swing of his club to the trajectory of the ball in flight to its bounce and roll on the green. According to Nicklaus, 40 percent of his game is setting up and assuming the proper stance, 10 percent is his swing, and the other 50 percent is the psychological game. He calls that mental side of the sport “going to the movies.”
Remember, there are limits to the amount of improvement that physical training alone can produce.
- Research at the U.S. Olympic Training Center states that elite athletes may spend 1,000 hours of intense, concentrated physical training to improve their performance by just one percentage point. That’s a lot of time for a relatively small change.
As a result, more athletes are being converted to the value of programs like the Missing Playbook™.
- In the late 1980s a study of 1,200 elite athletes was conducted comparing the training methods of the athletes who competed in the 1988 Olympic Games with those of athletes who qualified for the Olympic trials but didn’t make the team. The investigators found many similarities in the physical training techniques of the two groups, as well as their nutrition and sleep habits. But the athletes who made the Olympic team had spent more time developing the mental aspects of their game, particularly in the hours, days, and weeks before a major competition. That extra effort off the training field made all the difference in the world.
So if you are serious about getting better in your sport, you need to do more than hope or wish for that improvement. The Missing Playbook™ requires an “I want to” attitude as you begin to explore the infinite possibilities that await you. Are you willing to “pay the price” to get better in your sport? If you aren’t prepared to invest in yourself to make this program work, then it’s not your true desire to improve. You also need to BELIEVE that improvement is possible. The mind can become a crucial ally, but it can also be self-limiting. As long as you truly believe you can reach your goals, it can happen. The power of belief is real power. It creates a passion that prompts us to willingly pay the price for success.
