How can it be that one athlete delivers a top performance at the right moment and another does not when it matters?
Imagery is becoming increasingly popular among top athletes. How do they do it and how does it work?
One striking example of the power of imagery is provided by world and Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh from Ukraine when she is going to do the high jump. Beforehand, she lies relaxed on her back. Some see this as a sign of arrogance, not paying attention to what the other athletes are doing, but in fact she is concentrating, mentally and physically preparing herself for the flight she wants to make. A flight over the bar, like a swallow . . . free . . . flying away . . . For Mahuchikh jumping is flying into space, free, an emotionally liberating experience, as she explained in interviews.(1) She has imagined flying like a swallow countless times and it has brought her many successes, world champion in 2022 and 2023 and Olympic gold in Paris this year and world records. But, as she says in an interview, since the war it has become more difficult to imagine it, to concentrate. Before matches, she tries not to read the news, to prevent her mind from wandering to the stories and images of the bloodshed in her native country.
Imagining for a performance has multiple levels. The first level is what Roberto Assagioli called the psychomotor law:
Every image (that a person has) stimulates the creation of the physical state and the creation of the external actions that correspond to it. Every image that we form or that is unconsciously or unintentionally provided to us, think of the influence of the media, has a motor driving force.
This psychophysiological law has been confirmed in recent decades by many neuropsychological findings, in particular since the discovery of mirror neurons by Rizzolatti and colleagues in Parma in 1996.(2)
In the brain, what we perceive or imagine is automatically represented and activated, and then stimulates the corresponding behavior, often without the person being aware of it. This explains, for example, the contagious nature of yawning in a group, but also the success of advertising and (fake)news in the media
Beginners versus experts
What research among golfers has revealed is interesting. A group of people who had never played golf (beginners) were compared with professional golfers (experts). The research was conducted to determine which form of imagery yielded the most benefit. It turned out that beginners gained the most by imagining the stroke in detail.
The professionals, on the other hand, gained the most by not imagining the stroke in detail, but rather globally, as in one image. If the professional started imagining the stroke in detail, it even had the opposite effect; it interfered with their already available skill. It was already present in their psycho-physiological organism, in their brain, and only had to be activated.
Beginners in a skill first have to learn it. Just like learning to drive a car or opening a door as a small child, you first do it in detail, step by step. Once learned, it becomes a skill that you no longer have to think about in detail. It is available within you and is activated by the global image of it.
But more is needed
Guus van Holland described rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, who almost single-handedly shot England to the world title in 2003 with many perfect penalties:
‘He focuses on goal and ball . . . he folds his hands together . . . is it a prayer? No, but something like that. He uses his hands to protect himself from outside influences . . . to focus inward. When he focuses inward, he calms down, his breathing calms down, he channels the energy that flows from the centre of his body to his left foot to develop the desired explosive power there. Jonny has been doing it this way for years.’ (3)
It is an iron-clad self-confidence in the midst of a seething mass of spectators and watching nations that Jonny displayed.
Self-confidence at the supreme moment
Performing at a high level requires not only practice, physically and mentally, but also faith and trust in yourself. Not fanatically or forcefully, but from inner peace.
For the high jumpers at the Olympic Games it is essential to be able to see themselves jump over the bar, because the body follows the image. But it is precisely when the bar is at a record height that it is most difficult to imagine that performance. The swallow of Yaroslava Mahuchikh is her companion, she has made it her own, it has become a part of herself and that helps her to fly.
The real top performers manage to perform precisely in the final, when it matters and thousands or even many millions are watching you. It is then that you are tested, under that great tension the vulnerabilities in your psyche are touched.
Mind over matter
A remarkable example of the opposite of self-confidence, a sudden loss of power, was told by Henri, as I will call him, a superhelper in the Tour de France. Henri was interviewed at the end of his cycling career. As a superhelper, he had achieved many successes with his leader. He had been a master at keeping his leader out of the wind, carrying water, doing the work at the front and taking him along when necessary, uphill and downhill.
‘But’, the interviewer asked, ‘how come you yourself have won so little? In your long career, there must have been opportunities for that?’
Henri shook his head and answered, ‘I’ll tell you, in a Spring Classic, a few kilometres from the finish, I suddenly, unexpectedly found myself in the lead. The group of riders behind me had slowed down and I realised that if I keep cycling fast, I will win! At that moment, my legs felt like lead . . .’
We will never know where that ‘lead’ came from in Henri, the interview did not elaborate on that. Perhaps Henri himself did not know, but it most likely had to do with something in Henri that made him a ‘non-winner’. Perhaps too little faith in himself or some critical voice that played up at that supreme moment.
In 2000 I myself witnessed the biggest penalty debacle in Dutch football history. In the semi-final against Italy, five of the six penalties were missed. Two in regular time and three during the shoot-out. Unheard of and incomprehensible for expert footballers who practice shooting a ball into a corner every day for years. It was not due to their technical skills . . .
After the first miss and another ball on the post in regular time, dark clouds hung over the field. After the second miss, an ominous, leaden black blanket weighed down on the Dutch footballers and their supporters. The rest is history. Mind over matter.
Performing at a high level, in any sport or activity, requires practice, both physically and mentally. As far as the latter is concerned, there are several layers of training to be distinguished.(4)
In mental preparation, the relaxed, focused imagining of your performance is an important tool, not only visual but imagery with all your inner senses and bodily feelings involved. But the pitfall is to do this too fanatically, too forcefully. The key is to do it relaxed, concentrated, as in a (light) form of trance consciousness.
The second level of mental practice concerns strengthening your self-confidence at a deep level. Faith and trust in your abilities for when it comes down to it, when you are under pressure. That too can be practiced, in training, in simulation and in seeking out or creating challenging, confrontational circumstances.
There is an even deeper level: what are you actually doing it for? How important is the path to what you want to achieve and the efforts it requires? Is that of your own pure, free will, because it gives you satisfaction and joy or are there other elements in your psyche (or environment or upbringing) at play? If you can mobilize the core of who you are, your deepest values and life energy, then success is certainly welcome but essentially no longer the main or only goal.(5)
Jan Taal, August 2024
- I imagine myself as a swallow. So, I push myself off the ground, fly over the bar, and fly away….
Interview in: Fly Like A Swallow – The Quick Rise of Yaroslava Mahuchikh, sports4world.com, february 9, 2024. - Rizzolatti G, Fadiga L, Gallese V, Fogassi L. (1996). Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions.Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 3, 131–141.
- NRC, November 24, 2003.
- Only imagining that you have ‘already achieved your desired goal’ may give you pleasant feelings at that given moment, but, research shows, can subsequently lead to less effort and motivation, because you already have the feelings. Oettingen, G & Mayer, D. (2002). The Motivating Function of Thinking About the Future: Expectations Versus Fantasies.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,vol. 83, 5, 1198-1212.
- Taal, J. (2022). Imagery in Therapy, Counselling and Coaching.
