Improving Athletic Perfomance Using Hypnosis

A psychologist working for a prominent U.S Olympic team has observed that up to 80 or even 90 percent of the performance of an Olympic athlete is dependent on their mindset.

And in East Germany during the 1960’s trainers for the Olympics even used hypnosis on their athletes.

The same is true today in the U.S., where hypnotherapy is often incorporated into the training regimen of professional or even college athletes.

In other words, it is no longer a secret that your frame of mind is essential for giving your top physical performance, and hypnotherapy is one way of getting you into your very best frame of mind.

A number of clients come to visit me for issues related to the improvement of their athletic performance in every sport out there, from soccer to table tennis.

Athletes often come to me wanting to be relieved of their fear of getting hit by a tackle or ball, or generally just to improve their performances.

I have also met with people training for competition events in gymnastics, swimming, and diving.

All of these clients have understood that hypnosis can be a really effective means of getting better at their respective sport.

There are many different ways in which hypnosis can help you improve your performance in athletics.

Visualisation is a major element of this improvement in every case.

In 1984, Olympian Mary Lou Retton described her nightly ritual of pre-visualizing her performance: “I see myself hitting all my routines, doing everything perfectly. I imagine all the moves and go through them with the image in my mind.” And when it came time for the real competition, she did just that (did everything perfectly).

In their book “Sports Psyching” Thomas Tutko and Umberto Tosi talk about this type of visualization or “mental rehearsal” as they call it.

In this type of rehearsal one imagines themselves as clearly as they can acting out their shot, their stroke, or their overall routine exactly as they wish for it to really turn out in competition.

During this mental rehearsal, every single movement is seen clearly and turns out positively. Rehearsals like these apparently build up one’s neuro-muscular coordination, as well as one’s feelings of confidence and personal competence.

Using this kind of mental rehearsal or visualization can actually raise your awareness of your every movement and also improve your overall technique, as well as your concentration, coordination, and agility.

As each of these things improve, your enjoyment sports should also improve as your anxieties will lessen as your naturalness in the sport increases.

Removing your fear, anxiety and any other emotional obstacles is one of the primary ways in which hypnotherapy can improve your athletic performance.

Over time, I have met a number of clients who were actually afraid of the sport they played.

In other cases the fear is not so much of physical harm but a more general fear of failure or inadequacy.

In some cases the pressure put on young athletes by their parents or coaches can be enormous and simply too much for younger souls to bear.

Or in some cases the fear can even be of success itself if this will imply moving up into a higher league, level, weight-class, etc., which will in turn imply an increase in the level of competition as well as in the level of pressure and expectations.

In all of these cases, hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to alleviate this pressure and allow athletes to do their best without any of these emotional obstacles.

In some cases fear will not be the issue at all, and many athletes will simply come to me because they have hit an unexplainable slump and don’t seem to be able to get out of it on their own.

This very common problem can often be solved through hypnosis by helping the client to regress and reconnect to a time when they were hitting, swinging, or throwing perfectly.

No matter the issue, during a sports-related hypnosis session I will almost always have the client picture their perfect game, match, drive, or what not.

Then I can guide them through a very vivid “mental rehearsal” as described above where everything comes off perfectly, with a clear and relaxed mind as well as with power and competence.

The trance state brought about by hypnotherapy can aid people to perform the mental rehearsal who lack the concentration or imagination to do it by themselves.

Some may assume that hypnosis will not work form them since they don’t play a serious sport like basketball or gymnastics.

But no matter the competitive game, whether it be jump rope, tag, or checkers, you will be surprised by what just one session of hypnotherapy can do for you!

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Perth Hypnotherapists
Linda 0409 079 435 or Jan 0423 936 933 today.

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Results will vary from person to person.

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