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As some of you know, I teach sport and exercise psychology at California State University Long Beach. I'm at the point in my course where I have my students practice visualization and self-talk. Inevitably someone will raise his or her hand and say, "Okay Dr. Kain, it's fun to do this stuff, but does it really work?"

And the answer is: yes, at least according to a recent study in the Journal of Sport Behavior.

Here's what happened.

Four researchers from the University of New England, Australia examined the use of positive imagery and self-instruction on the serving accuracy in a tennis serving competition. They took 115 adult tennis players and randomly divided them up into one of three groups: positive imagery about serving, self-instruction about serving, or just do what you always do.

The positive imagery group was told that before each serve they should "imagine the whole serve, from beginning to end, including seeing the ball go into the target zone." They were asked to imagine what they would see, how they would move, and how they would feel.

The self-instruction group was told that before each serve they should give themselves a silent self-instruction. They could choose from a list provided to them or use one of their own as long as told themselves something they expected to help them serve accurately.

The researchers found that both positive imagery and self-instruction leads to greater serving accuracy. In fact, there was no significant difference between how well players who used visualization and players who used self-instruction did.

However, players who used either of these two techniques scored 19 points (19%) higher than those players who were told to "just do what they always do." If any of you play tennis you know that the ability to accurately place your serve to your opponent's weaker side (or just to reduce your number of double-faults) can be a huge competitive advantage.

When I share this with my students the next question is typically, "why does this happen?"

While no one knows for sure, the researchers suggest that in both imagery and self-instruction athletes focus on appropriately completing the upcoming task. Focusing on the task at hand may help athletes exclude distracting or anxiety-provoking thoughts ("Boy, I could really mess this serve up" or "It would be really embarrassing to double fault now").

Does this just apply to tennis? While the present study only looked at one sport, it's likely that athlete's in other sports would also benefit from pre-competitive visualization and/or self-instruction.

Still don't believe it works?

I'll tell you what I tell my students. Give it a try!




Reference:

Malouff, J.M., McGee, J. A., Halford, H.T., & Rooke, S.E. (2008). Effects of pre-competition positive imagery and self-instruction on accuracy of serving in tennis. Journal of Sport Behavior, 31, 264-273.