Mental Training: Mental Training Secrets

This will be a new series of posts as I read the book Mental Training for Peak Performance (click on picture for link to Amazon).  These posts will focus on key points from each chapter.

Chapter 2:

Topic:  Mental Training Secrets of Competitive Athletes

This chapter really just focused on strengthening the argument for mental practice.  The author of the book surveyed 1200 Olympic track and field athletes,  producing the following results:

1.  83% reported practicing some form of imagery, visualization or mental practice.

2.  33% used mental practice once a week or less

3.  20% used mental practice twice a week

4.  33% used mental practice three to six times a week

5.  10% more than seven times a week.

6.  Those who trained the longest hours reported more mental training

7.  Those that visited a sports medicine specialist were more likely to use mental training than those who did not.

"Grigori Raiport, MD, past president of the Russian Success Method Training Center...noted in an issue of the Sport Psychologist journal: The strategic goal of Soviet sport psychology...is to elicit peak performance from athletes.  To this end, Russians analyzed the nature of athletic inspiration and discovered that it consists of three components: physical, emotional and mental thoughts.  The Russian method is designed to train athletes to reproduce those thoughts and feelings at will, using autoconditioning.  This technique helps athletes choose their optimal mood for competition, be it joy, happiness or anger." - Source