Train imagination: How good is your imagination?

Do you find it easy to imagine your movements? Can you feel your body processes by visualizing? Do you have clear and detailed images of your goals in your head? Well, then you don't need to read any further ;-) If you still want to read on, I cordially invite you to the training. However, less for swimming, cycling, running and stability training, but for visualizing.

By the way, my absolute favorite topic - because as my role model Einstein already recognized: Imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited. Have fun training!

The warm up

Tilting images are suitable for warming up: these are images that provide two different variants or perspectives. Such photos are often used in psychology to test perception. Just enter the term "tilting pictures" in your internet search engine and you will surely find what you are looking for very quickly. I like to practice with cuboids, which you can "switch" between two perspectives by concentrating: either the front corner points to you or it goes deeper. Try to switch perspectives as quickly as possible.

Now imagine certain objects in your mind, eg your beloved racing bike. Look at it as a whole and in all the details: the color, the design, your handlebars, the gears, your saddle, your cranks, your wheels, your sprocket, maybe a start number from your last competition is still stuck there, etc.

You could also imagine different colors and let the respective color become stronger or fade. There are always people who say: "I can't do that!". Then I ask them whether they can imagine, for example, a green meadow or a red strawberry - whatever leads to success. So: If the colors alone don't work, look for distinctive objects that stand for this color. Once you have the picture, just look at the color in your mind and focus on it.

change perspective

After the warm-up we go into changing the perspective from internal to external: first you imagine how you execute the movement from your inner point of view and then you go outward. For example, imagine you're swimming through your technique routine and you're working on your high elbow. You perceive the complete sequence of movements as a “swimmer” yourself. It's easier to do this if you just visualize the flow of one arm first before adding the other elements like head position, core tension, footwork and of course the movement of the other arm.

Then you go into the external perspective and imagine how you observe yourself from the outside, what you notice and whether you would like to correct yourself if necessary. The more trained you are, the easier it will be for you to switch perspectives back and forth.

body scan

Now we go more intensively into body perception, for example when running. Imagine yourself running and scan yourself from bottom to top, especially what you feel. How's your footwork? How does the floor feel? How's your knee lift? How is your hull working? In what position are your arms swinging? how's your head doing What do you think? How are you doing? How do your muscles and strength feel? what do you taste What do you feel on your skin? Maybe wind? Or warmth? How's your breath?

The better your perception of your body and your imagination, the better you can not only control movement sequences, but also retrieve your positively saved images. You may be wondering why you should imagine what you taste or smell. Especially with a long distance, which often stands and falls with the right nutrition, you can motivate yourself in advance by looking forward to the next section of your nutrition plan and imagining how much this tasty replenishment gives you strength and energy gives. The sense of smell also plays a major role. I'm thinking, for example, of that typical "competition smell" before the start. That mixture of the smell of the lake, the wetsuit, the heat or sun creams, etc.

Auditory Imagination

We have now addressed almost all of our senses with the previous exercises (I described in general how important it is to address all of our senses in my last post on visualization). Now we train our auditory imagination. The auditory should not be underestimated in addition to the visual. We know from science what, among other things, selected pieces of music do to our mood, because they have a direct effect on our emotions via our limbic system. Since we know from studies that hearing is a very complex process in the brain and there are few people who can only learn well by hearing, we go from the simple to the complex when training. That means, for example, when crossing the finish line, imagine all the listening elements individually at the beginning: first you hear the speaker, then you concentrate on the background noise of the spectators, the clapping, the drums and rattling, then you hear your breathing and then yours footsteps on the ground. When you have all the pieces, you put it all together and hear the finish line with all its elements - and you will find that it is not at all easy to imagine everything at the same time. But that doesn't matter, you don't run a marathon from just one run :-)

Assemble & build in goals

Now that you have diligently trained all the individual parts, senses and perspectives, you can put everything together and imagine the competition in all its complexity, including changing where every movement has to be in order to save time. In your head you can imagine the process slowing down until everything runs smoothly and then increasing the speed.

So far, these have all been ideas about things and processes that you are familiar with. Since we want to develop further, we take our imagination to a new level and connect it to our goals. That means we're imagining things we haven't experienced before, such as driving up certain climbs with a higher wattage. Just imagine the values ​​on your display, concentrate on the strength of all muscle areas that are involved and your breathing, which transports oxygen to all important areas. Refine your round step etc. in your mind - and the good thing is: you can do it at any time, for example in the S-Bahn, during the lunch break, in the queue or wherever you want. And don't forget: Our brain learns through repetition.

Very important!

As soon as negative images come to mind, replace them with positive ones. For example, you want to improve your posture while running and you immediately think of your last run, which was horrible because you felt so nauseous. So rummage through your image database for a run that you remember positively and use it for mental training