Adding movement to mental rehearsal can improve performance
finds a study in BioMed Central's open access journal Behavioral
and Brain Functions. For high jumpers the study shows that
dynamic imagery improves the number of successful attempts and
the technical performance of jumps. The technique of mental
rehearsal is used to consolidate performance in many disciplines
including music and sport. Motor imagery and physical practice
use overlapping neural networks in the brain and the two
together can improve performance as well as promoting recovery
from injury. Researchers from the Centre de Recherche et
d'Innovation sur le Sport found that adding simple movements to
mental rehearsal could further improve performance by a third.
When they looked at the rates of 'hit' or 'miss' for high
jumpers taught to use either internal visual imagery or external
visual imagery (such as mimicking the arm movements during the
jump), the researchers found that while mental rehearsal
improved performance by 35%, mental rehear