A short excerpt from a YouTube conversation (Ben Greenfield interviewing a speaker) about the effectiveness of visualization and motor imagery for improving athletic performance. Ben asks whether visualization (citing examples like Michael Phelps) is useful; the speaker affirms that research supports it and notes a balance between an individual’s spatial ability and the quality of the visualization drill.
How do you tackle the idea of, like, you know, visualization and motor imagery? And I've come across a ton of really interesting research lately on, you know, kind of like those old, what was it like, the psychosomatic books, like the like the Inner Game of Golf or the Inner Game of Tennis, where you could actually improve your stroke or improve your performance by using mental imagery. And, you know, as we all know, probably most notably with the story of Michael Phelps, the swimmer got getting the point where did visualize, like, the individual drops of water coming off his goggles? So how do you deal with visualization? Is that something that you think is actually useful?
100%. The research proves it is. And there's a balance between spatial ability, that's the skill to participate in visualizations, and the quality of the visualization drill itself.
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