RAQ Training

By Dr. Bob Rotella
July 2007 GolfDigest.com
Golfers distracted by players in their peripheral vision, a car alarm going off in the distance or someone casting a shadow over their ball are worried about hitting a bad shot instead of focusing on the target and their pre-shot routine.

Distractions are part of the game. Golfers who accept this and view them as a challenge aren’t as bothered by them. One way to become mentally tougher is to expose yourself to distractions so they don’t bother you. Ask your friends to talk, rattle pocket change and move around while you putt or hit shots. Soon you won’t even know they’re there.

Illustration By Noli Novak

By John F. Murray taken from Tennis.com

Whether it’s a freak occurrence during a match or the result of constant play, injuries are something every player must deal with. But unlike touring pros, you don’t have an on-court trainer to help you manage the situation, so the everyday player may actually be more adversely affected. While annoying blisters, muscle cramps, twists, and strains may not seriously threaten your health, they chip away at your focus, fun, and confidence. All players need psychological weapons to counteract these minor irritations and avoid lapses in performance. How can you cope with an injury and still be competitive in your match? Here are some tips on playing hurt and winning.

Prepare with Imagery
If you’re dealing with an injury before you even take the court, include it in your match preparation. While pre-match imagery is typically used to keep skills and strategies sharp, thinking about your ailment in your imagery sessions can help you learn to deal with it effectively. You might say to yourself, “My toe hurts now, but I’m staying relaxed and keeping my focus on each point and will still execute my shots.” Imagery can also be targeted to help defeat the fear of re-injury if you’ve just recovered from a recent problem.

Seek Power from the Challenge
Slight injuries will only affect your emotional state if you let them. Since they are minor, you need to generate something major to stamp them out. You can never experience two opposite emotions at the same time, so if you create a competing positive emotional state, you’ll rid yourself of negative thoughts brought on by the injury. By smiling and convincing yourself that you love the challenge of winning the match, even with a temporary handicap you may forget that you were hurting at all.

Think Like a Chess Player
Many players fall into the “Why me?” trap. They focus so much on their internal sensations that even minor aches and pains take on gargantuan proportions. Instead of being dealt with, the problem becomes a crutch and a reason for losing. The solution for this is to think like a chess player, constantly searching for the best combination of moves (or shots) to win the match. By getting outside of yourself and focusing on the tactics required to win, you’ll forget about self-pity and the injury itself.

Stay Calm
Since muscle tension increases the sensation of pain, relaxation training is a gold standard in pain-management treatment. You don’t have to walk on hot coals; just loosen your muscles, breathe deeply and slowly between points, and imagine a calm or serene place. Do anything you can to keep your body free of stress and ache

By Dr. John F. Murray taken from Tennis.com

A tennis match always begins long before the first serve. How well you prepare yourself mentally is directly related to your actual focus, confidence, and poise once the real rallies begin. A great way to prepare your mind the night before a match is through proper “mental practice,” or imagery. This helps prime the pump so that you can hit the ground running the next day.

Tennis requires a great prematch strategy, rapid and accurate decisions under fire, adjustment during points, and a calm and clear focus throughout. Unlike in some other sports, sheer athletic ability and brute strength plays a less prominent role. Instead proper management of thoughts and feelings is essential, and imagery can facilitate this.

Imagery is just an effective means of positive daydreaming. It is a mental technique that programs the mind to respond as programmed, by using all the senses to recreate or create an experience. It’s one of the key mental skills in athletic performance. This technique helps us get ready for the next day’s excitement and familiarizes us with shot patterns, body movements and strategies. It helps us hone strokes and improve mental quickness, rehearse new skills, refine existing skills, prepare for particular points, and get ready for an entire match. Studies have shown that imagery helps reduce the time it takes to warm up, lowers anxiety, and increases self-confidence.

Just like any physical skill, imagery needs to be practiced. After doing imagery in my office with clients, I’ll often encourage them to keep going with it almost every day of the week. If you think about what percentage of your practice time is spent hitting balls versus developing essential mental skills through techniques such as imagery, you may discover that you are ignoring this crucial part of your game. Players frequently say that tennis success is 60% to 99% mental. Are you even spending 1% of your practice time in imagery or other mental training?

One column cannot possibly do justice to this enormous topic, but let’s get started with one form of imagery, a 20-minute session that will help you on the night before an important match:

1. Find a quiet room where you will not be bothered for at least 20 minutes. Turn off the cellphone, loosen your clothing, sit in a comfortable but firm chair with your arms at your side, relax totally, and close your eyes.

2. Begin with a deep breath, inhaling slowly for 7–8 seconds through your nose and exhaling even slower for 8–9 seconds from your mouth. Just pay attention to your breathing—nice and slow, and steady. Keep this pattern up for a couple of minutes.

3. Return to a normal, calm breathing pattern and just focus on inhaling and exhaling.

4. Next, imagine yourself on a quiet beach or on a comfortable raft on a calm lake, or any one of your other most pleasant and relaxing scenes.

5. You will now be completely relaxed. At this point, begin creating a variety of competitive tennis situations that you anticipate will occur the following day. Play all the points with complete focus and confidence and perfect technique.

6. Throw in a variety of difficult situations, and each time see yourself prevailing with proper footwork, aggressiveness, and patience. Play just a few games or an entire set if you want. To avoid boredom, make the points interesting. Be creative!

Some individuals have a natural ability to form visual images than others. Here are some tips for those with difficulty forming images:

1. Try thinking in pictures rather than words.
2. Look at pictures or videos prior to using imagery.
3. Stay in a quiet, relaxed and calm environment to avoid distractions.

Here are some more general principles to enhance your imagery sessions:

1. Make the imagery seem as realistic as possible by including all senses,
in full color and detail, within a similar emotional context.
2. Practice imagery regularly as it may take months before seeing improvement.
3. Believe that imagery works, as your attitudes and expectations enhance the effect.
4. Keep a focused yet relaxed attention while using imagery.
5. Only imagine perfection. This will boost your self-confidence and reinforce good habits.

By engaging in at least 20 minutes of imagery the night before matches—and on many other nights, too—you will be practicing an important mental skill that will raise the level of your game. You will be more prepared than ever before. Point sequences will be more natural and familiar to you and this will enhance anticipatory quickness. You are on your way to becoming a mental master!