Intro to Visualization

PURPOSE:The goal of this exercise is to introduce how powerful the connection between the mind and body can be. This is a great exercise to use with athletes who are new to visualization or athletes who are skeptics of visualization. 

EXERCISE:  It’s important not to give away the goal of the exercise to your athletes right away; rather let them feel the power of the mind body connection through the relaxation script. 

Find a quite place for this exercise and have the athletes lay down on the ground, carpeted floors, or yoga mats work great.  

As you lie down and get relaxed. Close your eyes and breathe deeply in through the nose and out the mouth. Inhale through the nose, and out the mouth.  Do this 5 times until your breath becomes natural and relaxed. 

Frist we are going to scan the body for any tension. Start with your feet, scrunch up your toes hold it for a few seconds and then let your feet completely relax.  Do the same thing with your leg muscles.  Tighten your leg muscles, hold it for a few seconds, and now let them relax.  

Move up to your hands, lay your arms directly at your side, tighten your hands into fists hold it tightly for 5 seconds then let your arms completely relax. Feel them lay heavy on the floor.  Move your attention to your chest and shoulders try to identify any tension. Tighten the muscles in your core and shoulders, hold it for 5 seconds and then let it relax. Breathe deeply and feel the weight of your body melt into the floor. 

Finally bring your attention to your face. Make sure there isn’t any tension around your eyes, eyebrows, and relax your forehead. Breathe deeply and relax. All you need to do is listen to the sound of my voice. 

Picture yourself arriving at training for the day. This morning you are running from the COE in Park City for an easy distance jog.  You arrive at the COE early, It’s 7am so the sun is low in the sky casting a golden light across the soccer fields and parking lot.  You step out of the van onto the blacktop and the air is refreshing. The dry cool desert air wakes you up and although it’s cool out you can already feel some heat from the sun on this completely clear day. The sun is starting to warm the blacktop. You feel rested after a good night sleep and your legs feel ready for a day of training in Park City. 

You strap on your drink belt and walk across the parking lot to where the single track starts. Today you are going to run out to the round valley trails. As you start running your body feels stiff for a few strides but you soon fall into rhythm and your feet, legs, and hips loosen up. As you run toward the trails you smell the fresh cut grass from the soccer fields, the sounds of gravel and dirt crunch underneath your trail shoes and your stride falls into a smooth rhythm. 

Out on the trails you’ve been running for 20 minutes or more now. Your body is completely loose now and your legs feel snappy. Running to you feels effortless as you glide over the single track your feet clicking along on the dust and rocks. Your lungs fill easily with air and your hips roll into a forward position on each stride. Effortless, fun, fast running. Your arms and upper body are relaxed and move in synch at your side. Your whole body is moving down the track but you don’t need to think about it, your arms and legs act on their own without hesitation. Your arms pump, and your legs roll. 

Effortless, fast, running

You’ve been gradually climbing and soon you have made it to the top of the round valley. This particular hill is open at the top aside from a few small desert trees. Lots of rocks, gravel, dust, and some light green sagebrush scatter the top of the mountain. As you jog to a stop you realize your body is warm and your breath is warm. The sun warms the shirt on your back but the steady cool desert breeze keeps you from sweating too much.  The perfect training temperature. 

You step out onto a big boulder and look out behind you from where you came. You see a long ways with today’s clear view. You see a few big buildings out in the distance, the COE, the National ability center. Houses scatter a few of the hillsides near town and all is quite other than the faint hum of the highway you can see way in the distance and the occasional chirping of birds. 

You realize you haven’t had a drink yet so you un-clip your drink belt and pull it from your waist. Today instead of just water you have packed something in the top of your drink belt so you unzip the top and pull out a small crumpled bag. The bag was probably from an old sandwich lunch bag so the paper is crumpled and soft.  You reach into the bag and pull out what you have brought. You’ve packed a bright yellow lemon and a small pocketknife. You pull them both out, the lemon feels cooler than the air from sitting in your pouch and the skin feels grippy, ripe. You unfold the pocketknife to reveal the blade. With the blade in one hand and the lemon in the other you cut into the fruit. The skin cuts easily as juice drips down the blade. You have cut the lemon into 4ths and you take a big slice and bring it to your mouth. You have to squint your eyes from the sun as you bite down on the lemon wedge. 

You bite down on the lemon. The test is refreshing. It’s awakening. Juice drips down from the corner of your mouth and you can feel the flesh of the fruit between your teeth. 

After your lemon snack, you take a quick slug of water and pack everything back in your drink belt. You clip the belt back around your waist and turn back to the trail. It’s getting even hotter now but after a quick rest your heart rate has dropped and you feel you are ready to run again. You take off down the track back toward the COE and the breeze from running soon evaporates the sweat from your eyes. 

The running feels effortless again and you gradually roll back downhill through the single track. By the time you make it back to the parking lot the blacktop is putting off a lot of heat now. The parking lot has many more cars and the workday is in full swing at the center. Your muscles feel like they have worked hard but they are not tired. It was a perfect distance run to shake out the legs and your body feels ready for whatever the day will bring. 

Ask the athletes what they thought of the visualizing. Where they able to accurately visualize? 

What happened when they visualized the lemon?

It’s important to note that the lemon likely triggered a physical response of mouth watering. Point out that there is not an actual lemon anywhere, not in this room, the lemon was purely visualized and ‘tricked’ the body into doing something. 

If the body can be tricked into thinking it’s eating a lemon it can be tricked into just about anything. Get psyched up for a race, become calm for a race, become less nervous, ignore pain, imagine pain, ski with a specific technique, the powerful link between the mind and body through visualization can achieve all and more of these things. 

As athletes become more experienced with visualization they will be able to explore its benefits and become better at visualizing more clearly and staying focused throughout the whole exercise.  The mental pathways between the body and mind can be trained and will be more powerful and easier to access with practice.