Athletes know all too well the benefits of using imagery before competition.
A tennis player will imagine his powerful topspin-slice first serve. A golfer will rely on imagery to review her plan of action for her next swing. A baseball player will use imagery to get motivated for when it”™s his turn at bat.
With proper execution, imagery can also be used during your indoor cycle classes to correct and improve the technique and intensity of your participants. With your guidance, they can mentally perform specific skills and have those skills transfer to the body.
For example, you can introduce an exercise where your participants image a cheetah running through the wild. When your participants image a cheetah, they will stop bouncing up and down start powering through by focusing on moving forward.
To help your participants create a fluid pedal stroke, you can ask them to image the wheels of an old fashioned train where they can understand the meaning of a circular and fluid motion.
Imagery should also be used to help your participants correct their mistakes and improve. For best results, group fitness instructors should implement the following practice during class: (1) identify the mistake, (2) and providing feedback about how to correct it, and (3) suggest an image they can use to help them focus on the specific skill.
Call to Action: Take some time before your next class to identify the top three most common mistakes or improvements that your participants need to focus on. Then, identify an image that will help your participants understand your instruction. The next time you teach a fitness class, challenge yourself to introduce one image to your participants.
Believe and Achieve,
Haley Perlus, Ph.D.
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Originally posted 2009-12-15 09:35:34.
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OK, I knew Haley had written this article, and you may all know that she is a friend of mine (who lives nearby) but she and I did NOT talk about this particular article and she has never heard me use this example. But I’ve used the imagery of a cheetah running through the wild for years. I call it my Discovery Channel series, where I have my students watch the Discovery Channel in their mind’s eye; sometimes it will be watching a cheetah running in slow motion, sometimes an eel slipping in and out of coral reefs or other examples.
This is an awesome article Haley and I think it’s so cool that you used the same imagery that I do (great minds think alike, isn’t that what they say? 🙂 This gives me an idea of another blog post, to take Dr. Perlus’ suggestion and put it into practical use for you guys, giving some suggestions on imagery that you can use in your next class.
It’s always great when you come up with your own as well.