Easy Visualization Methods; Boost Your Sports Performance and Health Recovery

Episode 76. Unlock the Power of Visualization for Peak Performance and Recovery: Techniques Anyone Can Use

Visualization techniques are widely recognized at the elite athletic level, benefiting individual sports like golf and swimming as well as team sports such as rugby, American football, basketball, and hockey. The core concept here is that mental conditioning—often referred to as "mind over matter"—continues to gain momentum in both sports and health recovery. Scientific research is increasingly focusing on how the mind influences physical health and recovery in therapy settings as much as it impacts sports performance.

In this discussion, we explore various types of visualization and techniques that are not just for elite athletes but can be easily applied by anyone. Discover how you can leverage the power of visualization to enhance your performance and boost your well-being, regardless of your athletic level. Embrace the potential of your mind and walk towards better health and success.

Key Takeaways:

• The role of visualization in sports and health.
• Practical techniques for effective mental conditioning.
• How anyone can harness the benefits of visualization.

Walk well and unlock your inner potential with proven visualization strategies!

Transcript

armando (00:27.683)
Welcome back folks to episode 76 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, Ph.D. in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today is mind over matter.

Such a lovely title and sounds like lots of fun. And it really was researching a little further into this, but the mind over matter has been something that many people still take as woo woo and being somehow beyond mystical and untouchable and only for those special circles that are willing to waste time doing. So what I'm going to do is actually kind of do a little bit of a supportive dive into what usefulness visualization.

imagination, mental rehearsal, things along this nature provides and how it's really not a waste of time and science has not dropped the ball on this. Now there are quite a few studies out there that are currently being done that are phenomenally interesting and I haven't even gotten into the real depth of this matter. I have not completely gone down that rabbit hole, but boy when I do I'm coming back and I'm going to tell you about it. But what I did find was rather not only fascinating but exciting, but also support or the fact that there are people out there that we

really laud and appreciate whenever we're seeing such as the Olympic games that are going on right now. And what I want to say is congratulations to Portia Woodman Wycliffe because she has just recently retired but an amazing athlete no less. And I was very fortunate to see some of her gameplay. But people at that level, at that extreme elite athletic level that play various different sports, whether it be adversarial such as that team sport, individual sport, whether it be

contact, not contact, and also

armando (02:20.963)
the type of sports that involve precision and timing versus speed, contact and evasion. And we all benefit in this area of study because one of the things as humans that we share is the fact that we are for the most part largely visual. Now there are exceptions out there and I will say that they are out there, but they're so few and far between that they're not just an extreme outlier, but they're

almost unique, they're very rare and those are going to be the folks that are prosopagnosics and also folks that also have something that's called face blindness and there is not so much zero visualization capacity but their capacity to consciously be aware of it despite them having functioning eyes and able to remember what they've seen and recollection is there. The conscious recollection of a visual is not something that they

they are able to access but yet their visual capacity still works so there's a disconnect in a sense. Not unlike synesthetes, where ever there is a confusion of signals supposedly.

And this is what the medical science says, but still outliers, people out there that are perceiving slightly different than what you do, but yet they're still able to function in a world. So these are some important points to keep in mind, but I'm going to dive into what it is that I did find that I thought was rather fascinating. One was that there's still quite a few studies out there that are being done in the use of visualization, imagination, and also what it is that we call mental rehearsal. And,

What want to touch upon first are what science has found to be a very distinct difference in types of visualization that one experiences when one is intending to visualize, assuming we are all within that center, that bell curve, once again, the largest percentage of our population affected. And that is there are three different types. One is that we have what's called an internal visualization. And this is what we actually can generate based on what we've experienced in our recalling from what we've seen like the

armando (04:32.406)
Lemon that I've talked about in the past in this podcast wherever you think about a lemon biting a lemon or even seeing or experiencing something like Seeing somebody eating something sour even smelling something citric once it's being bitten in in front of you or just having a recollection of that either one will cause you to salivate and This is called the cephalic phase of eating when it has to do with eating but we are very well aware that the cephalic part is visually oriented because

it's a recollection. once again, I said internal visualization, internal visualization, that term basically means that anything that we generate by memory or recollection is considered internal. So that's the internal visualization.

that we're talking about there. And internal visualization can also be a recollection that we develop into what's called a constructed memory or constructed thought. Wherever we see a baby, I've seen babies before and they're really cute and they make us feel all warm and fuzzy. Then you think about a big bushy black beard that you've seen on somebody from anywhere in the world. And then you realize those are two memories that you've seen out in your world, two actual experiences that we have recollection of.

But when we do a constructed memory and we will call it a memory because it'll be an after the fact at some point that we put that beard on that little baby or put it on the face of the cutest puppy or maybe even your own dog that's really silly that you like to play with. Wow. What a picture, right? Makes you either smile or go like, wow, what the heck's that? But might even give you a few chuckles at that moment. But the actual

construction of a memory based on two things of something that did not exist or does not exist is something that is also an internal memory so we can actually make things happen such that we'll even have laughter occur and laughter is a reflex mind you it's not something that we think to do it kind of occurs and the studies were done to support that idea numbers of years back where they're actually realizing that disgust along with laughter is something that is a deeply wired thing within our

armando (06:43.463)
Brain which is really cool to know so when somebody laughs sometimes as a stress response. It's not because things are ha ha funny one of my sons actually does that whenever things get stressful his Stress reaction is smile and laughter whenever I've had to dad him I've had to tell him turn around son I couldn't look at him when he was doing it because he was so compelling that he'd make me laugh in the process of trying to be authoritative and tell him What to do what not to do and teach the lesson so to speak so that was an interesting experience now back to

visualization. The other type of visualization was external visualization, those things that we actually take in from our outer world and what we're actually seeing at that moment in our outer world. So what am I visualizing or perceiving more correctly that I can say that I'm seeing like my bookshelf that I'm looking at across my living room right now and also my laptop where I'm working and doing this podcast and those things that I can objectify name and label. That's a higher cortical process would be considered external

visualization. Now the next one is called a kinesthetic visualization.

And it's actually kinesthetic imagery is the way that the term was given, but there is a visual visualization quality to it. But the imagery that we pull up is more like from the sports psychology side, but also applied in medical. I'll explain that here in a bit, but the kinesthetic one is probably a little more difficult in that whenever you're doing a recollection of a certain image of movement, let's say you've seen somebody performing a movement that you're trying to learn like a Nadia Komenich doing a perfect 10.

the Olympics first time in the 1970s or maybe the pirouette that is done in a dance class or maybe a simple punch or spinning kick that is done in the martial arts or maybe seeing yourself actually landing

armando (08:39.538)
a dart on target and perfect red center or even golfing wherever you're putting the ball and seeing it go 18 feet and falling in the hole this sort of thing where we've seen it before we want to emulate that but whenever we are doing this we're kind of doing what's called something along the lines of mental rehearsal with a physical rehearsal along with it where you may actually be doing the action gently but not doing it but imagining doing it and all the muscles involved and maybe even having your golf club involved

maybe the ball and kind of seeing it as you're doing it seeing it as you're doing it even though it may not be for high stakes or an actual game but before so in other words you're seeing what it is you're doing as you're doing it but you can also do this wherever you're

seated and doing kinesthetic recall of what memory of the muscles feel like firing and moving and holding tools and and going through the motion itself. There is another term for that that comes out of the neuro linguistic program inside this called visual image streaming where you could actually see yourself doing the motion and you go through the motion with your eyes closed and you're imagining the green you're imagining maybe even the tops of your shoes if you're golfing or wherever you're interacting.

with an opponent if you're an adversarial type sport, wherever it's not only team or individual, but where there is someone else that is opposing you, an opponent, this sort of thing, or a counterpart. And you imagine all those things, but you're focusing on the skill under the duress of that imagined pressure, so to speak, or their imagined game or state that you're going to be experiencing while you're doing the same thing with swimming, diving, basketball. Now I've tested this with a number of folks, most of

those folks were children in many cases that would be at family gatherings and I don't drink or smoke do anything like that so why the adults were doing that I would usually do things like

armando (10:38.633)
maybe we'd be shooting baskets and I'd be teaching techniques. Well, imagine this, imagine that in the sense, and then they would follow along, we would do the technique. And even though they were successful at doing it before, by adding the visualization aspect, like the term that I would use from the martial arts is putting the Qi in the whole Qi is internal energy that is a psycho spiritual energy that supposedly exists according to traditional Chinese medical. And, I do have,

advanced degree in education. doesn't make me a fool for believing this, but it's something that I did not believe until after the fact, after I had an experience, I did not believe before. But after that, it's like, well, there's something there. But the idea came from a non-belief perspective and

What I was thinking is if I imagine that energy or mindset or even put my mind into something that tends to be a little abstract to me, but whenever I said put the chi in the hole, we were actually shooting baskets. And I just imagined my point being in the very center of that basket and even without necessarily aiming per se, but just throwing the ball in the direction with the intention of getting into that little hole, the very center of that basket, I was able to make it. So I tested it with myself, tested it with others and it seemed

to be a very useful technique and it's more so not anything woo woo but probably just the fact that we're predictive and then we have expectations of based on what it is that we intend. So I've just kind of given you a really important technique there. Three little pieces that can make your methods better and you can actually flex it and bend it as you need and I've used it for archery and also target shooting but when we would do target shooting we would use something that was very low powered like an airsoft pistol and I

put up a piece of paper and I would make a mock-up of a target this sort of thing and without using necessarily hard line keep your eye on the ball hard focus but rather soft focus visual and telling people to intend what it is that they wanted to touch with the pellet they were able to hit it 90 % of the time and this was all very anecdotal and very you know

armando (12:50.75)
off the cuff type of stuff, but it was very effective for teaching people very quickly in a very spontaneous setting, how to be not only a targetter, but also being really good at, intention and also completion of intention. So there were some things that came up that, but once again, the kinesthetic imagery is one where we start pulling up physical sensations or try to remember the physical, maybe even going through the motion itself, which does fire the actual muscles, even if your eyes are

closed and you're imagining going through the motion without a golf club and going through the swing, this sort of thing, or going through it with a golf club itself, but yet imagining the ball and seeing it fly after you've hit it, this sort of thing. So why are these things important is my question. Well, one is considering the fact that science is still pursuing this, they're still trying to find out, how does the mind affect healing?

The mind-body connection, we know it's there. We used to think there was a mind-body separation. This is what's called Deckhart's error, where it's the ghost in the machine somehow housed in this body, this avatar of sorts, but it's not connected somehow, but yet it still lives in there and provides consciousness. And we've since made the connection realizing that everything from the brain step down is considered our...

subconscious mind as much as that part of our mind we can't consciously access. So our body is an extension of that subconscious mind in a sense. And much of what we've realized is that if we want to change our mind, we have to change our body because it's our body that drives. And often because it drives, we tend to get into these arguments. And I love Robert Sapolsky when he talks about all of his things. But if you get so granular to the point that we think that we really have no free will,

then we can't really choose even though there's choice in the matter. And that starts speaking more about sentience of mind and where does mind exist versus the fact that our brain does brain, it does fire, does what it does, but yet we still can't put our finger on mind.

armando (15:00.265)
only where areas fire as we remember emotions and even those are byproducts of having a brain or having experience with the brain. So back out of this without getting too granular once again, because we get too granular, then the tool will become less useful because we get bogged down in the details, not realizing that we're describing those things. And we're supposed to take an understanding of those things from science and not get bogged down in the details. Well, for instance, with fat loss, you know, whenever we go so far, then we have gluco neogenesis.

We don't want to do that. That's not true. We have to do that That's how our body does whenever we wake up fasted our blood sugar may go through what's called the dawn Phenomena we may be just a slight bit higher even though we haven't eaten for 10 maybe 12 hours It doesn't mean you have elevated blood sugar chronically in the sense wherever your diabetic type 2

but what it does mean is that you probably worked out a lot and you probably used all your stores in your body in the morning releasing cortisol decides to go into we need to fork and have energy to find food mode not because we have refrigerators now which is much too efficient and then we eat and then our blood sugar will go up again sometimes it'll actually go down after having eaten and that is part of that dawn phenomena that occurs so what does visualization have to do with that often whenever we start thinking of our

hunger, what our body feels, then we start IDing or IDing, having ideas of more correctly, how to find food, where is food, this sort of thing. And visualization, the cephalic phase of eating is involved in that. that's an internal visualization based on a very kinesthetic drive, a very deep, visceral drive. So let's get into some of the science of how they're finding out what visualization does, because this is incredibly

the

armando (17:19.701)
have that capacity and whenever you can visualize well those that tend to be a little more artistic and see more detail in the visual they tend to do a little better with it. So just some details to pay attention to but some of the details that are helpful in making visualization a useful thing is how vivid the visualization and this actually is one of the drivers away of people that would even try visualization. I can't imagine everything looks dull and I can't see it it's supposed to kind

of look dull. Not everyone has like a Disney quality experience whenever they're visual visualizing and the very small range these are outliers like those that are prosopagnosic they fall in the farthest end of no the ones that fall in the highest end of yes tend to be just that they tend to be outliers as well most of us tend to have kind of holographic almost dark flat-ish images and some of us when we dream have very vivid dreams so you know that that's not always the case when we dream and when we daydream so

of the things that drives people away from even trying visualization is that well it's not all pretty it's not like a disney quality movie and that's not your fault that is your nature and it's okay it all gets worked out in a subconscious mind sometimes it requires that we have a script to follow along and that's okay that's why creative visualizations have taken on such a great great following on youtube and anywhere you can download because if you're following the instruction we can actually by listening to those words construct those

things once again the constructed memory the baby with the beard type of thing we can make it happen some of us are really good at following instruction that way and that's okay it doesn't make you a weak visual visualizer it just means that sometimes we have to gain a little skill practice is important

as

armando (19:34.461)
the on this chart for somebody that may not be particularly verbal or capable of speaking the same language it's very similar in that sense

Now, one of the things too we realize is that whenever using visualization, one of the more important things to learn a skill is to see somebody else doing it. And then we try to emulate one of the other useful ways of doing this is seeing oneself doing this. And this is where using a mirror is very helpful. This is where mirrors become very useful whenever physical therapy and things along that line tend to be used.

the method of using mirrors is not anything new to our athletic performances and I mentioned dance and ballet earlier and if you go to any ballet studio at least the higher end studios most of them have the railings along the wall next to the mirror so people can actually see what they're doing where they're stretching and also so they can see the amplitude how big this these

motions are and also the virtuosity that is used in gymnastics too so they can see the depth the length and also how far and how true they are to the technique as it should be performed at its peak and the visualization aspect is not just seeing it and that's external visualization mind you because it's happening in real time at that moment but also we recollect based on external visualization and our memories help us stretch and do things whenever we no longer have that mirror present more

and that's kind of an elevation of what used to be shadow boxing shadow box would be in one of the first external visualization tools wherever one used visualization projected so to speak, from light behind the shadow or even from light reflected the mirror or even for that matter, the oldest mirror that would be a pond of water bottle or even a bowl of water, where we could see things occurring and gain imagery from said

armando (21:42.779)
of visual imagery and they were using actually a projected screen where somebody was in a wheelchair for instance and they were seeing what they were wanting them to do in physical therapy and that's regained the ability to walk and by watching the visual image of someone else walking the closest thing to a first person where they're seeing the back of the individual walking away so that would be essentially watching someone else or as if they were watching themselves walk so to speak

but that was a close approximation to be able to emulate and these visualization trainings that they use, actually they were using f R I technology to measure and they realized that the motor cortical areas in the brain were actually firing. The body was firing more and yes, they were learning how to walk and relearning. And there were many that did actually regain the skill. And one of the things that were compound had to do with chronic pain that tended to actually prevent the person from doing cause

was so much not wanting to but rather sometimes pains and indicator of injury and not to do things and those were some of the confounds there but they were actually using that and there were some that actually did improve their ability to walk and regain walking capacity after having had a stroke and having to relearn how to refire those areas after the ischemic damage and there was also another study in which there were

trying to use visual imagery to help people overcome physical pain and to encourage motion. One thing that they did found is that the internal visual imagery was something that did not necessarily drop a whole lot of pain. So the analgesic effect wasn't nearly as high as what they were hoping, at least to find, but they did find that motion did improve and increase in some. once again, the confound was how much pain was involved that would actually limit the person

to do which sounds a lot like learned helplessness if anything but it's something that if it's been chronic enough long enough the body responds and says I'm not gonna do that and it overrides but it just doesn't speak it that way it just doesn't fire now one of the things in visualization as well is if we're in the first person and we're seeing ourself our hands for instance in a dream wherever we wake up and do something along the lines of a more conscious dream than this

armando (24:09.481)
is where lucid dreaming more correctly this is something wherever we're very associated in it sometimes a visualization if we're associated in I see myself doing like Mario Kart I've seen my hands on the driver's wheel I look down I see the tops of my shoes but I'm not looking at my face that means I'm seeing my experience like I would experience it in my body and this is more the avatar experience and we're gonna use that term like the movie the blue guys with the tails that's kind of cool and

whenever you see yourself.

from the inside, realize your consciousness is not unlike deck cards ever, the ghost in the machine, so to speak, but the, the ghost has the handles on the controls. So you actually are not disembodied, but rather involved. And, this avatar experience is something that kind of helps, give us a sense of depth and what it is we call our visualization. And we have that sense of not own control, but involvement, but, just, an idea to keep in mind now, whenever you see something third person,

We tend to emulate things a little better. But one of the things about visualization and healing and body mind healing that is really fascinating. There are many anecdotes about this. There were some studies done that they actually did in China on Tai Chi and Tai Chi is something that I've trained for many years. I learned it as a martial art and as a healing art. But what is really cool is that there were times that people recognize that just by watching somebody an exponent, a very highly

the

armando (26:09.567)
as as these people had recovered to. there is something to the body mind connection and it's not just our own body mind, but also our body mind connection to external visualization and seeing motion and others. And the emulation of that, is that a social construct? Is that something that is driven by us being to wanting to be part of that group? And what if that group is just one other person just wanting to be able to do what they do? And it's not a jealousy thing, but rather wanting for oneself what's best.

think that's a survival trait. That is just merely a kind of a loose thought that I want to throw out there. Something I'm probably going to follow up on a little more and something definitely worth discussing with people you may know out there and ask people, what do you think about that? What do you think about people that heal by using their mind or watching someone else that is healthy and moving and accelerating healing in the self? Absolutely fascinating to say the least, but among other things, lots of potential there and science hasn't let go of this and it's not as woo woo as people would have.

you think out in the colloquium if people say that just know that they're speaking from their own ignorance and this isn't being rude but rather their lack of knowledge is agnosia it's not ignorant in the bad sense but rather ignorant in the sense of lack of knowledge truly agnostic and sometimes we just have to be a little patient and understand that so with that I'm gonna close for today and I really enjoyed this morning Sunday morning speaking to you all taking a little time off from work just to chill and hang out and this is something that

to mind that was very fun for me to research and I'm going to continue doing that. And if you want to find this podcast, of course, you can find it on all platforms. That's iTunes, that is also Amazon Music and Spotify. And I do have a bit of a following, smallish following on YouTube as well. And I'm going to continue to expand this channel. So for now, I want to tell you you have anything to give as far as feedback, please send it to the email at running man get

skills project at Gmail I'd love to hear from you and if you know somebody that could benefit from this please share it with them I'd love to hear from them as well and even if they don't want to hear it give it to them anyway I think they will learn they'll appreciate it they'll be a lot smarter as a result so you take care keep your mind on things mindfully visualize physically rehearse daydream of course and walk well