Strength Training, using the mind.

In my previous microblog post on the power of visualisations, i talked about how it was demonstrated that visualising sinking a basketball in the hoop can be almost as effective as actual physical practice.

In this microblog post I'm going to mention a study from 2013 where the researchers took 18 young and healthy participants and randomly assigned them to one of three conditions:

1 - Internal motor imagery
2 - External motor imagery
3 - Control group (no practice)

So, what is the difference between internal and external motor imagery?

The internal motor imagery group imagined themselves actually doing the exercise - they were asked to visualise and imagine the feeling of physically engaging in elbow flexion contraction (i think it's like a bicep curl?).  Apparently, some participants even imagined putting their arms under a table and trying hard to mentally lift the table.

The external motor imagery group imagined themselves actually doing the exercise, yet saw this happening from a third person perspective.  Not through their own eyes.

The training sessions lasted 15 minutes, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks.

Not surprisingly, those in the control arm of the study experienced no change.

Every single participant in the internal motor imagery group experienced clinically meaningful strength gains (a medium effect size), whereas only 50% of those in the external motor imagery group experienced similar.

This small study demonstrates how powerful the use of mental imagery can be.  With the use of visualisation significantly improving voluntary muscle strength.  The authors suggest that the findings hint towards a stronger reinforcement in the neural circuitary that controls the signals to the corresponding muscle when the someone visualises through their own eyes, rather than from a dissociated perspective.

It is quite impressive to think that we could, potentially, increase our physical strength by 10.8%, just by imagining ourselves exercising muscles for 6 weeks.