In the Zone: Enhancing Sports Performance

You CAN Reach Your Personal BEST with Hypnosis

PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES? SECRET WEAPON

Many top athletes use self-hypnosis to help them achieve peak performance. United States teams as well as those of other nations recognize that the power of mental rehearsal is of equal importance as physical practice. It is well-known that Russian Olympic teams are taught mental conditioning from the outset of their training.

For the average person, hypnotism cannot turn a golfing duffer into an international champion. Factors, skills and abilities other than mental are involved. But hypnosis can be used to enable a player to achieve his or her personal best!

In a cover story on the 1984 Olympics, Time magazine reported that on the night before the finals in women?s gymnastics Mary Lou Retton, then age 16, lay in bed at Olympic Village mentally rehearsing her performance ritual. She had done the same on hundreds of previous nights, visualizing herself performing all her routines perfectly?imaging in her mind all the moves and rehearsing them again and again. The result, of course, was a performance of perfection, presented with charm, poise and confidence, culminating in a gold medal.

Being ?in the zone? or ?in the flow? is a hypnotic state.

With 23 Olympic gold medals, Michael Phelps learned to succeed by mastering mental rehearsal to create unshakable inner confidence and to execute his skills perfectly. He routinely visualized every aspect of a competition in complete detail, including easily releasing or adjusting for any mistakes or setbacks, and maintaining focus on correct thoughts for a winning belief. It was reported that he even imagined water leaking into his goggles, a mishap that would severely impair his vision. When asked about the effect of his leaky goggles, Phelps replied: ?It felt like I imagined it would.?

?What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve!?

Proof of that statement has been provided countless times. Both Mary Lou & Michael pictured a perfect performance in their minds. Their bodies produced it. This same capability is available to any sports enthusiast, professional or otherwise, who chooses to harness it. Even if the skills and coordination abilities do not equal Olympic levels, they can carry the player to new heights of personal best, enhancing levels of achievement and satisfaction.

To train the physical body to the limits of capability, without simultaneously training the mind, is to invite at best, mediocrity. Sports psychologists have claimed that for Olympic teams, 80 percent of an athlete's performance emanates from the mind. This belief has been echoed by championship players in virtually every form of competition.

MASTER YOUR INNER GAME: MENTAL FOCUS & WINNING BELIEFS

WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH THE POWERS OF THE MIND?

Whether an individual endeavor or coordinated team effort, you can improve execution and personal mastery as well as the enjoyment of your game. Mental rehearsal, also termed visualization, can create and reaffirm the confidence necessary to achieve peak performance. The picture, visualized in the mind vividly and repeatedly, can convince the subconscious that achievement is completely within the range of possibility. The automatic nervous system performs in exactly the same manner as followed during an actual physical rehearsal. Neuromuscular coordination improves. What your mind can conceive, you can achieve. Think it and see it in your mind, and you can do it!

Perhaps most important is the development of positive attitudes. Negative thoughts pertaining to performance skills can be changed or eliminated through hypnosis. Concentration, coordination, technique all can improve as well as the awareness of proper form and posture. Enjoyment of the sport will be enhanced to a major degree, as skills improve to the point where intermittent incidents of poor performance no longer trigger irritation, anger, discouragement or detrimental emotional reaction.

Sports enthusiasts face the same types of stumbling blocks that people encounter in other areas of life? business, personal relationships, achievement of personal goals and ambitions. The biggest of all is fear, and fear comes in many forms. Fear of failure is always restrictive and is very common in sports, as is its hidden partner, fear of success?an apprehension that success can create the expectation (among others) of further improvement. Fear of injury can result in muscle tension, even hesitation at a key moment. Fear of humiliation and intimidation can be strong. Many golfers experience near terror on the first tee where people may be watching the first drives. The very thoughts of fear held in the mind produce sensations in the body, which can result in deterioration of skills.

Hypnosis, or properly learned and applied self-hypnosis, can work to reduce or eliminate the mental obstacles to peak performance in sport activities. This is an area in which the truth of that phrase ?what the mind can conceive, the body can achieve? becomes highly evident.

CHEARLEADERS: OVERCOME FEARS & GAIN INNER CONFIDENCE

THE STEPS TO ACHIEVEMENT

The application of hypnosis is not aimed at the learning or acquisition of the basic skills involved?although this process could be accelerated by using hypnosis to enhance learning of new skills. But generally, the goal is to enable the athlete to achieve personal best, performing at peak levels. As with virtually all hypnosis, the first step must be relaxation to a level appropriate for the implanting of hypnotic suggestion. This deep mental concentration can be brought about through guidance by a professional hypnotist, or it can be learned through study and practice of self-hypnosis using any of several excellent techniques.

Goal setting is essential. Without having an objective, it is pointless to begin a task, project or pursuit. Goals should be set by the athlete, in consideration of input from their coach, trainer or mentor. It is important for goals to be specific, measurable, and focused on the area in which improvement is most desired. Playing better tennis is not a valid goal. Improving a serve or backhand in a certain way is a goal. Goals must be achievable using specific step by step actions, including releasing of any self-limiting beliefs, so that both completion and success are experienced.

Mental rehearsal is the ultimate key to superlative performance. It can prove more productive than physical practice alone. Imagery is not merely visual in nature; it should include all the senses. In a diving competition, the form of the dive is visual; the smell of the chlorine water is olfactory; the wetness of the entry is sensory, the cheers of the crowd are auditory. Perfection requires the use of all senses.

Concentration is vitally important, and sometimes difficult to develop. Hypnotism has long been an effective means of improving concentration capabilities. Distractions must be eliminated. Post-hypnotic cues may prove useful in stimulating both concentration and specific skills. Visualization?not just in mental rehearsing beforehand, but also at the moment of performance?can produce dramatic results.

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