as we know practicing your sport in specific ways is the most direct path to Improvement in your sport unfortunately the amount of work we can perform each day week or training Cycles limited by our work capacity recovery capacity and schedule interestingly there is a Training Method we can use which allows us to practice our technique race plans and prepare ourselves for competition without taking one step in an actual Sprint through properly executed visualization we can trick our brain into thinking we are training or competing and there are scientific evidence which suggests that practicing visualization can increase your strength endurance reaction time and more visualization also known as mental imagery or mental rehearsal is the process of using your mind to practice rehearse and literally create your best performances in your own head in sports visualization can be used to improve performance without physical effort by mentally rehearsing your sport specific movements competition strategies and your competitive event research shows that visualization can be used to improve a wide range of physical and mental abilities including strength endurance balance balance coordination reaction time and confidence in athletes own abilities visualization can also help athletes overcome injuries mitigate pain be resilient in the face of stressful situations and to achieve their athletic goals while some might write visualization off of some woo-woo esoteric nonsense the fact is that the regular use and practice of visualization will make you better at your sport properly executed visualization activates the same neural Pathways as actual physical practice and this neural activation leads to changes in the brain that are similar to what we would see in response to typical forms of training and practicing research has found that using mental imagery can activate various parts of the brain which play a role in how you learn move and perform these areas of the brain include the primary motor cortex the pre-motor cortex the supplementary motor area and the cerebellum in a study by Morris spittle and Perry those who mentally rehearsed a specific task through visualization were able to improve their performance in the task to a similar level as those who physically practice the task whether without visualization basically those who visualized were able to improve at the task without having to physically do it additionally a meta-analysis which looked at the available studies on the effects of visualization on Motor Performance by alchemed at all showed that visualization was an effective method of improving a wide range of physical skills including strength endurance balance coordination and reaction time this suggests that outside of our physical practice which we do on the track or the field we can use visualization to get even more practice in and this mental training can improve our performance beyond what can be achieved with physical practice alone this is particularly important for sprinters triple jumpers Javelin throwers and other athletes who compete in highly technical high-intensity events which are inherently Limited in how much training volume an athlete can perform because we can only Sprint jump or throw so much in a given period of time visualization gives us the opportunity to further develop our abilities without adding more physical stress and strain to our bodies it is believed that visualization can can enhance performance by facilitating motor learning and skill acquisition increasing motivation reducing performance related errors and mitigating performance related anxiety or stress by regularly rehearsing the most perfect example of sprinting that we can imagine we can train our brain to put us in that same place we will be when we go out and physically Sprint and as we do this over time we can actually adapt to this visualization in a similar way with which we adapt to actual physical training how you apply visualization and what techniques you use may vary depending on your sport for sprinters the goal is to create Vivid mental images of our desired performance and repeatedly rehearse this as often as we can to visualize effectively we want to bring in as much sensory stimuli as possible related to our athletic performance this way the visualization we perform can be perceived by the brain as being a real situation think about the sights The Sounds the smells and the kinesthetic feel of the environment and your body what is the track going to look like what is it going to feel like all of these things matter if you're using visualization to improve your block starts put yourself in that situation mentally such that you can feel the ground feel foot pressure in the blocks feel the sequence of rising into the set position reacting to the gun and perfectly executing the subsequent steps what does the air feel and smell like how bouncy does the track feel how explosive do you feel all of these details matter in order to properly visualize in addition to sensory stimuli I think it's also wise to put yourself in the emotional state that relates to performing at your best how would you feel before during and after you said a huge personal best how great would you feel throughout this whole process by mentally rehearsing both the physical and emotional aspects of you running faster than you ever have you can turn this mental image of Performing well into a reality I believe that many athletes visualize without even knowing it but oftentimes they're doing it the wrong way it's common for athletes who are anxious about some aspect of their performance to visualize themselves making mistakes failing or otherwise not being their best instead of rehearsing and attracting what you do not want we need to use visualization to bring us the type of performance we do want on focus on success including the physical and emotional aspects of success and you'll be more likely to attract that success when it comes to race day athletes can reap the benefits of visualization by doing it on a daily basis this can be done before practice during as well as after visualization just before you fall asleep can be a powerful way to incorporate mental rehearsal as sleep is where a lot of the training adaptations we have become solidified in our brain and body athletes can also visualize during their warm-up for a competition as this can help Prime the brain the body and the athletes level of confidence without having to Tire yourself out with too many warm-up Sprints jumps Etc so as you go through your competition warm-up and you're doing your Sprints you're doing your Mobility all that stuff you can also set aside time maybe before your warm-up or in between your warm-up and the competition to visualize yourself performing at the highest level that you can possibly imagine so that way when you go into your race you're starting from a place of confidence of high performance and you've set that as the tone in your brain and in your body during a period of in injury athletes can use visualization to rehearse performing their Sport pain-free with full access to their optimal range of motion and Performing without fear of re-injury if a movement hurts visualize yourself doing it with perfect form with no pain and imagine how great that would feel to have overcome your injury by visualizing this healthy state of your body and of your mind you can attract that and put yourself one step closer to being injury free and running at your best from a coaching perspective coaches can also help their athletes by giving them guidance on how to visualize what to visualize and how this practice of mental rehearsal can be tailored to the needs of each athlete an athlete who fears hitting the wall at the end of a long race can be guided toward visualizing a strong and energetic finish athletes who struggle with their block starts can be instructed to imagine themselves flying out of the blocks effortlessly with perfect ground contacts and leading the race from the start so if you want to get the most out of your training and perform at your best you need to practice visualization on a regular basis over time it will become easier to create a realistic men mental movie which allows you to go through training or competitions without having to leave the comfort of your own home or your own bed as you continue to get better at visualization you'll start to see that the things you have visualized will soon become a reality