Dartmouth Men’s Skiing: Imagery Essentials

This handout reviews some of the essential components of imagery as well as when and how to use it.

 Imagery is creating or recreating an experience in your mind, using all of your senses.  It is a mental blueprint of what you want to accomplish.  Two main questions to think about with imagery are “What is it going to be like?” and “How am I going to respond?”

Imagery should be:

• Poly-sensory:  Imagery should incorporate all of your senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and feeling how your body moves).
• Vivid:  the image should be crisp and clear, like the difference between HD TV and regular TV
• Controlled:  You need to be able to control the image to get the outcome and response you want to happen.
• Real Time:  The timing of the image should be as close to real life as possible.
• Internal/External Perspective:  Internal imagery is the perspective of yourself (viewing the event as if you were experiencing it internally), and External imagery is the perspective as if you were watching it on TV. Experiment with both perspectives to find what works best in the particular situation.
• Positive:  Experience what you want to happen.  You can visualize mistakes, but it’s important to focus on your response to those mistakes, how you want to respond.

Uses of Imagery:

• Developing skills: Athletes use imagery to help in learning new sport skills or enhancing ones they already know (e.g., working on technique in the freestyle).
• Building confidence: Athletes use imagery to rehearse the thoughts and feelings they would ideally like to hold before a competition or performance (e.g., imaging taking a penalty shot)
• Recovery from injury: Athletes can use imagery to aid in their recovery through focusing on healing and rehearsing plays and strategy if they can’t participate in practice (e.g., imaging blood flow to a wound or going over execution of plays).
• Energy management: Athletes can use imagery to help foster the kind of emotional and physical energy they need for a performance.  They may need to ramp up or relax and imagery can help with both (e.g., rehearsing a peak performance).

When can we use imagery?

• Daily Practice:  Best to incorporate imagery into daily practice routines (ex: breaks between drills or during dynamic warm ups and cool downs).
• Outside of Practice:  Try practicing at low stress times (ex: at night or before/after lunch).
• Audio:  Imagery can be recorded on an mp3 or audio player (I can assist with this if you need).