The New Visualization Breakthrough: Mental Training
Tactics For Health And Fitness Success
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.burnthefat.com
Understanding the mind's role in motivation and behavior is one of the most
critical elements in fitness success. If you struggle with changing habits and
behaviors or if you can’t get motivated, then even the best training and
nutrition program is not much help.
A fascinating fact about your subconscious mind is that it's completely deductive
in nature. In other words, it’s fully capable of working backwards from
the end to the means. You don't need to know how to reach a goal at the time
you set the goal. If you "program" only the desired outcome successfully
into your "mental computer," then your subconscious will take over
and help you find the information and means and carry out the actions necessary
to reach it.
Many people are familiar with affirmations and goal-setting as ways to give
instructions to your subconscious mind. But perhaps the ultimate mental training”
technique is visualization. In one respect, affirmation and visualization are
the same, because when you speak or think an affirmation first, that triggers
a mental image, being as the human brain "thinks" in pictures.
You can use visualization to plant goals into your subconscious mind. You simply
close your eyes, use your imagination and mentally create pictures and run movies
of your desired results. For example, in your mind's eye, you can see the "body
of your dreams". If repeated consistently with emotion, mental images are
accepted by your subconscious as commands and this helps with changing habits,
behavior and performance.
Although there are some new and creative ways to use visualization, (which
you are about to learn), this is not a new technique. Visualization has been
used formally in the fields of sports psychology and personal development for
decades and philosophers have discussed it for centuries:
“If you want to reach your goal, you must 'see the reaching' in your
own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.”
- Zig Ziglar
“The use of mental imagery is one of the strongest and most effective
strategies for making something happen for you.”
- Dr. Wayne Dyer
“Creative visualization is the technique of using your imagination to
create what you want in your life.”
- Shakti Gawain
“Perhaps the most effective method of bringing the subconscious into
practical action is through the process of making mental pictures - using the
imagination.”
- Claude Bristol
"There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind
of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long
enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking."
- William James, 1842-1910, Psychologist and Author
Despite these glowing endorsements and a long track record, some people can’t
get past feeling that this is just a "hokey" self-help technique.
Rest assured, however, that visualization is an effective and time-tested method
for increasing personal success that has been used by some of the highest achievers
the world.
The Soviets started to popularize visualization in sports psychology back in
the 1970's, as detailed in Charles Garfield's landmark book, "Peak Performance."
They dominated in many sports during that period, which validated visualization
anecdotally.
In the last 10-15 years, there has been some groundbreaking new brain research
which has validated visualization scientifically. Here's something that was
written recently by Dr. Richard Restak, a neuroscientist and author of 12 books
about the human brain:
"The process of imagining yourself going through the motions of a complex
musical or athletic performance activates brain areas that improve your performance.
Brain scans have placed such intuitions on a firm neurological basis. Positron
emission tomography (PET) scans reveal that the mental rehearsal of an action
activates the prefontal areas of the brain responsible for the formulation of
the appropriate motor programs. In practical terms, this means you can benefit
from the use of mental imagery."
So much for visualization being a "cheesy" self-help technique.
Although visualization is widely used today, even people who are familiar with
it often don't realize its many applications. Arguably the most common use of
visualization is by athletes, musicians and other performers as a form of “mental
rehearsal.” Research shows that "practicing in your mind" is
almost as effective as practicing physically, and that doing both is more effective
than either one alone.
A common use of visualization in the fitness context is “goal visualization.”
In your mind’s eye, you can see yourself having already achieved your
physique goal or your ideal goal weight. You can also visualize a specific performance
goal such as completing a difficult workout or a heavy lift like a squat or
bench press.
One creative way you can use mental imagery is called “process visualization.”
Once you've set your goals, it's easy to come up with a list of the daily habits,
behaviors and action steps necessary to reach your goal. So write down the action
steps and visualize them - the entire process, not just the end result. See
yourself food shopping and grabbing fruits, vegetables and lean proteins, ordering
healthy foods from restaurant menus, saying no to sodas and drinking water instead,
and going to the gym consistently and having killer workouts. Some people visualize
their entire “perfect day” as they would want it to unfold. When
you do this as vividly, emotionally and in as much detail as you can, you will
be neurologically priming your brain to carry out those behaviors.
The least known of all mental imagery techniques is called “physiology
visualization.” An example would be picturing the fat burning process
in your body or seeing the muscle fibers growing larger and larger. Using this
technique, could it be possible that you might be giving subconscious instructions
to your body's cells, organs and tissues?
Well, consider the work of Dr. Carl Simonton, a physician and cancer researcher
who taught his patients (as one part of a comprehensive program), how to visualize
powerful immune cells devouring the cancer cells. I’m not suggesting that
you can cure cancer or materialize a lean and muscular body just by visualizing,
(there's a step in between thought and manifestation - it's called action -
a step that many self help ‘experts’ forget to mention). However,
thoughts and mental images are the precursors to action and the fact that a
mind-body connection definitely exists makes this an exciting prospect.
Scientists have established the mind-body link in many contexts, and not just
by the existence of a placebo effect. There’s also direct evidence as
in the way emotional stress can contribute to physical disease. The mind does
influence the body! The mere fact that a branch of science has been devoted
to this area is proof that it deserves critical investigation and is not just
the domain of infomercial self help gurus. The science is called psychoneuroimmunology.
Using “physiology visualization,” you could, even in the middle
of a workout, imagine the fat burning process taking place, and visualize fat
being released from adipose tissue storage in your abdominal region or elsewhere.
You could see the free fatty acids entering your bloodstream, being carried
to the working muscles and being burned for energy in the muscle cells. You
could also visualize the physiology of muscle growth.
To make your imagery as accurate and detailed as possible, my best suggestion
is to refer to an anatomy & physiology textbook that shows pictures of fat
cells, blood vessels, myofibrils, motor units, sarcomeres, and cell organelles
like the mitochondria, so you know what the structures look like. You could
also get more details about the processes by looking up lipolysis, hypertrophy
or beta oxidation.
Even if you had no idea what the internal structure and workings of the body
were like, you could still use this method. Your body responds to mental imagery
even if it isn't anatomically correct. We know from the field of hypnosis that
the subconscious mind responds well to metaphor – maybe even better than
literal suggestions. Facts and logic are the domain of the conscious mind, while
emotion and metaphor can slip right past the conscious and into the subconscious.
Dr. Simonton often wrote about his young patients who created (metaphorical)
mental images of immune system cells as "knights in shining armor",
slaying "the dragon" of cancer cells.
One of your greatest mental powers is imagination. You can visualize anything
you want and you can embellish and exaggerate your imagery as much as you want.
For example, you could imagine the free fatty acids being burned for energy
in the "cellular powerhouse" - the mitochondria - and you could imagine
the mitochondria as a fiery furnace... "incinerating" the fat! I think
it’s a pretty cool idea to "see" your fat cells shrinking and
visualize your body as a "fat burning furnace.”
Should you not believe that there's anything to the physiology visualization
technique, that's ok, because we know that the subconscious is deductive. Just
give it a goal, tell it what you want and it will get you there automatically
by altering your attention and behavior. Therefore, we can be confident that
physiology visualization will be effective even if only as a subconscious directive
about your desired goal. If science someday provides us with conclusive evidence
that visualization actually does cause cellular - physiological changes in the
body, well, that's just all the better.
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist
(CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of "Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs
or supplements using methods of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models.
Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting:
www.burnthefat.com
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