The Power of Visualization

  • Works without even moving.
  • Improve your ballhandling, your shooting, and even your confidence… without touching a ball.
  • That's the power of visualization.

What's VISUALIZATION?

  • Visualization is a true mental training based on a simple principle: your brain doesn't differentiate the real repetition and imagined repetition.
  • Basically, you train by creating game situations, exercises, and moves in your head, as if you were in a session.
  • When you visualize, your brain activates the same areas and mirror neurons as during real action on the court.
  • The result: you strengthen the muscle-brain connection, not just through imagination, but by creating the most realistic mental situation possible, engaging all your senses.

Why Do Visualization?

  • Physical Recovery

    Mental preparation is part of the game and it should be part of your training plan: it helps you progress even when you can't train physically.

  • Neuromuscular Connection

    This gives you the opportunity to do 100 times more repetitions of a specific movement than in a simple workout.

    Creating, or strengthening, neuromuscular connections

  • Confidence

    When your subconscious sees you successfully complete a move or a shot over and over again, it eventually becomes convinced that you can actually do it in a game.

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SCIENCE and VISUALIZATION for Basketball Players and Athletes

  • A 1980 study found that, among players on a top-level basketball team, those who trained solely through visualization improved their free throws by 23%.



How to Do Visualization Effectively

  1. Go to a quiet and safe place.
  2. Take a few deep breaths to relax and focus.
  3. Close your eyes and imagine a situation in detail: the arena, the room, the sensations, the colours, the sound of the ball, even the smell…
  4. Replay the scene over and over again, always with a positive outcome at the end.
  5. If it's difficult to activate all your senses or to perfectly imagine success, that's normal. Visualization is a skill: you have to work on it like a skill, again and again.
  6. Start with simple situations, then add details and complexity step by step.

Sources:

  • Imagination is a powerful weapon. Legends like Steph Curry, Conor McGregor, and Michael Phelps have used it to progress and gain a real advantage.
  • If you want to take things to the next level, you know what to do: start visualizing.
  • Imagine what you want to become … and then make it real.

Don't forget Hooper:

DISCIPLINE | WORK | PASSION

BALL DON'T LIE

Written by: Quentin FAGIANI