• Using internal imagery (also known
as kinesthetic or first-person
imagery), you’d imagine or mentally
create the physical feeling of
performing the exercise from within
your body.
• In contrast, using external imagery
(or third-person visual imagery),
you’d sees or visualize yourself
performing the task from outside
your body—similar to watching
yourself in a movie.
Internal imagery generates significantly more physiological responses such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate compared to doing external imagery. Yue’s team have shown that internal rather than external imagery is required to increase muscle strength. Yue says,
“We suggest that this process might reinforce the neural circuitry and send stronger signals to the target muscle.”
Mental practice in rehabilitation
Because neuroimaging studies have shown the same parts of the brain are activated during mental rehearsal and actual practice, it’s thought that the technique may help recovery from stroke, especially when used to rehearse demanding or complex motor tasks like walking or writing.
A recent meta-analysis of the effect of mental imagery on recovery from stroke conducted by Australian researchers concluded,
“Indeed, mental imagery could be a new hope for stroke patients given its benefits of being safe, cost-effective and rendering multiple and unlimited practice opportunities.”
Even though mental practice offers a safe and easy way to help preserve and improving performance no amount of visualization can substitute for physical practice, exercise, or getting out on the course and practicing your golf swing. And it is important to keep in mind that, like the real thing, mental training needs to be intensive and repeated over and over again to work.
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