Imaginary Training....works?

Zero V

Zero V

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This makes alot of sense, so next time your daydreaming at work, make it about doing your next big lifts in the gym. If this has any merit to it, it can act as a supplemental booster to actually providing better results.

The coupe de grace of the phrase "Get your head into the game"






Strength athletes can get more out of their training if they combine their regular training with imaginary training. Sports scientists from the University of Lyon discovered this when they did trials on 21 students. The legs react particularly well to imaginary training.

If you look at images of a bodybuilder training his calf muscles, you can strengthen your own calf muscles a little. The same happens if you imagine you are training your fingers or your biceps. [Neuropsychologia. 2004;42(7):944-56.] Whether it’s worth using this principle to complement regular strength training had never been studied, which is why the French decided to do so.

The researchers got a group of students, none of whom had trained previously with weights, to train 3 times a week for 4 weeks on the bench press and the leg press. The control group just trained, and rested between the sets. The experimental group tried during the rests between sets to imagine as realistically as possible how they would perform their next set [MI].

"Try to imagine yourself performing the motor sequence with your eyes closed, by perceiving the different movements just as if you had a camera on your head, and feel the body’s sensations", were the instructions they got from the researchers. "You have to see and feel only what you would see and feel if you had to perform this particular skill (bench press or sled leg press). Imagine the movement using the most comfortable way for you, and make sure not to contract your muscles."

The table below shows the progress the subjects had made after 4 weeks.



.................................................... MI Control
Bench press (kg)...............................+6.23 +7.75
Leg press (kg)...................................59.77 42
Bench press (reps 80 % 1RM)............. +3.78 +2.9
Leg press (reps 80 % 1RM)................ +17.75 +12.8
Circumference right arm (cm)...............+0.11 +0.15
Circumference left arm (cm)................+0.06 +0.05
Circumference chest (cm)................... 1.0 0.0
Circumference right leg (cm)................+0.25 +0.1
Circumference left leg (cm)..................+0.75 +0.15


The effect was strongest on the maximal strength the subjects managed to develop on the leg press. You can see this effect in the figure below as well.



Although the effect of imaginary training is modest, the researchers think that it may be of some help to strength athletes. Imaginary training is a “reliable complement to conventional physical training procedures”, they conclude.

Sourced

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20508474

http://www.ergo-log.com/traininginimagination.html
 
gamer2be08

gamer2be08

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I have heard posing and flexing in the mirror has similar effects like that^^^..
 

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