The Super Mental Training Book (24 page)

12. Ibid.

13. Pat Tarnawsky, "Mind-Body Regulation," Runner's World, April, 1973, pp. 16-19.

14. For a center near you, write: Biofeedback Society of America, 4301 Owens St., Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033.

15. Tarnawsky, op. cit.

16. "Sport Biofeedback," Runner's World, December, 1979, pp. 11-13.

17. Amby Burfoot, "The Old and the Renewed," Runner's World, June, 1986, p. 40.

18. Robert K. Stevenson, Backwards Running, (Fullerton, California: Stevenson International, 1981), p. 23.

MENTAL TRAINING STRATEGIES TIME LINE (SWIMMING)

D A Y S

B E F O R E

T R

A

I

N I

N G

P E R I

O D

T H E

R A C E

T

H E

R A C E

Hypnosis Sessions

(Dr. McCall hypnotized Servite high school swimmers, who proceeded to record lifetime bests; similar results attained by University of Oregon swimmers after Coach Schleicher introduced hypnosis into their workouts)

Self-hypnosis Sessions

(Servite high swimmers, water polo players; Univ. of Oregon swimmers)

Visualization Sessions

(Mark Spitz held three main ones the night before, the morning of, and just before the race)

Release of Nervous

Energy Mentally

Stored Beforehand

(Chris Coveney)

Visualization Sessions

(University of Iowa swimmers; to maintain his motivation Mark Spitz imagined things while training, like a lovely girl at the end of the pool)

Comprehensive Mental Training Program

(University of Iowa swimmers followed one developed by Dr. Gauron, each athlete possessing a mental training handbook; "psychotraining" by Gurov taught Moscow team swimmers self-hypnosis and visualization, resulting in PRs during the USSR championships)

"Mobilization of the Will"

(Gurov et al brought this about with posthypnotic suggestions)

Attain One's Optimal Arousal Level

(Accomplish this just before the race; Dr. Raiport favors pulse rate as the measure of arousal; Dr. Nideffer used skin conductance)

SWIMMING:

MENTAL TRAINING LEADS TO SELF-IMPROVEMENT AND VICTORIES

Swimming is a sport where mental toughness plays a large role in determining who will win the race. Swimmers not only must overcome their opponents and own self-doubts, but also the drudgery of their workouts. Workouts easily become boring because the scenery does not vary; the pool never changes its location or size and shape. So, the swimmer must find a way to motivate himself to endure the lap after lap routine. Mental rehearsal techniques have enormously benefitted many swimmers by: 1) helping them to achieve their athletic potential during competition, and 2) inspiring them to complete long and demanding workouts (the completion of which is necessary for the attainment of peak physical condition).

Mark Spitz, winner of a record seven gold medals during the 1972 Munich Olympics, often used an imagery-like technique during training. Spitz, in his book The Mark Spitz Complete Book of Swimming (1976), relates what he did to combat the monotony of his workouts:

There are a few tricks you can use during training since you have to think about something while you are swimming back and forth, back and forth. I used to think of different things to keep my interest up. For instance, once I used the image of a beautiful girl at the other end and I would really be swimming hard to get to her. It was kind of a game. You couldn't be thinking of a girl all the time since that'd get to be old hat. But you have to think of something at least part of the time since after a while training gets to be a lot of dull, hard work.

Note that Spitz did not do a formal relaxation procedure before performing the imagery. Most psychologists contend that imagery yields better results if the athlete practices the technique while in a relaxed state. However, this does not mean that the technique will not prove effective when performed under other circumstances. For example, golfers, such as Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, have experienced tremendous success with imagery while employing it during competition; and, the technique has benefitted them without their relaxing prior to using it (see chapter on Professional Athletes). In Mark Spitz's case, a formal relaxation procedure was probably unnecessary because the repetitive nature of the workout—stroke after stroke, lap after lap—perhaps induced a light hypnotic or meditative state of mind in him (see Dr. Kostrubala's ideas on running and meditation in the chapter on Long-Distance Running). Spitz was therefore susceptible to suggestions, and when he practiced the imagery, he accepted the impression as real, swimming faster and farther as a result.

Spitz also mentally prepared for an upcoming race in a systematic fashion. States Spitz:

I took time to think quietly. I used to make a point before I went to bed to think about the meet the next day for maybe five minutes. Then I would put it out of my mind and go play cards or something else. Then I'd wake up in the morning and think about it again just before breakfast. Then a couple of minutes before I would get up for the competitive event, I would do it again. I would concentrate on what I wanted to do, how my competition was swimming, how well I felt, and then I would go in and swim.

The quiet thinking Mark Spitz did probably can be categorized as visualization. He did this in the evening before going to bed, and in the morning after waking up, times when the mind is very receptive to suggestions. The mind is slipping out of consciousness in the evening, and into consciousness in the morning; in both cases thoughts reach the subconscious level as well as the con-

scious mind (see Jimmy Grippo's remarks in the Boxing chapter). Providing the thoughts are right, the athlete will become properly "programmed," allowing for the total manifestation of potential come competition time. Spitz also repeated his visualization process a couple of minutes before each race. This served to reinforce the instructions he had given himself in the previous mental rehearsal sessions.

It can be seen that Mark Spitz left little to chance. He mentally rehearsed what he wanted to do in the race, doing so at least on three separate occasions in the day leading up to the event. While he could have done even more mental preparation (for example, as some sports psychologists advocate, performing his quiet thinking each day during the week leading up to the competition), this was no doubt unfeasible for Spitz because he competed in so many events. Spitz entered and won these seven races in the '72 Olympics: 100 m freestyle, 200 m freestyle, 400 m freestyle relay, 800 m freestyle relay, 100 m butterfly, 200 m butterfly, and 400 m medley relay. To do three mental rehearsal sessions every day for each of these seven events, or a total of 21 mental rehearsal sessions daily (147 sessions weekly), would certainly not leave time for much else; plus, the mental jugglery involved seems daunting. So, the problem Spitz faced was just the opposite of most athletes: he had to avoid doing too much mental preparation, not too little. Clearly, he found the right solution.

The important thing for one to understand about Spitz's example is that he consistently used forms of visualization during workouts and in preparing for competition. Employing mental training strategies obviously worked for him, but realize that such strategies can help any swimmer improve his performance, a fact the following story demonstrates.

On October 4, 1979 I visited Servite High School, a Catholic boys prep school in Anaheim, California. I went there with the intention of talking to Mike McCall, Servite's swimming and water polo coach at the time. A July 1, 1977 Los Angeles Times article, "Sometimes a Good Swim Can Be Most Entrancing," had aroused my curiosity. As reported in the article, Coach McCall asked his father, Dr. W. C. McCall, to hypnotize the entire team. The 1977 Southern California interscholastic swimming championships were approaching, and Coach McCall wanted his team to produce a super effort. Dr. McCall, past president of the American Institute of Hypnosis, was up to the task. He hypnotized the swim team, and we note in the Times article what then happened:

The results were dramatic. All six (swimmers) recorded their lifetime bests in the meet. Servite finished fourth in the championships, won by San Marino.

Says Dr. McCall: "All I had to do was to reach the swimmer's subconscious by hypnotizing him and he corrected his effors."[l]

Seeking to learn more about this incident, I managed to talk to Jeff Riddell, a varsity water polo player for Servite in 1978 and 1979. Interestingly, Coach McCall had also taken the high school's varsity water polo team to his father to be hypnotized. Riddell recalled the hypnosis session:

Coach had us go down one day to Dr. McCall's office, which is just down the street in a medical building. There were about 19 of us, the entire water polo team—all the varsity players. Dr. McCall brought us in, sat us down, and talked to us for a while. He told us to be real relaxed and all that stuff. Then he had us hold our arms up. Everybody did it. Dr. McCall also told us, "Your arms are concrete" and that we couldn't move them. Then he told us that we could move our arms. I guess we were hypnotized right then.

Dr. McCall told us to think of a corner of the goal. See the ball and catch it, and think of the corner of the goal: that's where we were going to throw it. He said, "Just

think of the ball going into the corner of the goal." Dr. McCall also said, "Think of it like kinetics. If you think that's where the ball's going to go, that's where it will go." We did this half the time we were there.

Coach had written down our personal faults that we needed help on, and so Dr. McCall went through these with each one of us individually. He spent maybe two minutes with me. Dr. McCall just said, "Jeffrey, here are your legs. You need help on your legs because you don't get out of the water." And he goes, "From now on you're going to work real hard on your legs, and you're going to practice that." Dr. McCall also said, "From now on you'll play with your hands up on defense."

According to Riddell, Dr. McCall also told everyone on the team that they had to study. In Riddell's case this suggestion apparently helped because he said he ended up doing better than usual in his classes that semester, earning B's.

The hypnosis session took place right before the start of the regular season, and everyone on the team seemed to profit from it. Informed Riddell, "The whole team's play improved a lot. Our record was 16-6. We went to the quarter-finals of CIF (the Southern California high school championships) where we met El Dorado, and they were rated #2 in the nation. They won, but we played a really good game against them. Our overall record was the same as last year's team; but, the year before we were supposed to have a lot of superstars on the team—and they lost in the first round of CIF!"

The hypnosis did not transform Servite into the national champions; but, it did inspire the players to practice and play hard, facilitating the realization of their full athletic potential. You cannot ask for more from any mental training strategy. The hypnosis session with Dr. McCall, explained Riddell, "helped us from then on, because we were thinking, 'Well, if we have to do it, we might as well.' That was the attitude."

Although Dr. McCall hypnotized the water polo team only once, a most exciting spin-off occurred. Several of the players figured out how to hypnotize themselves! More than this, these players began practicing self-hypnosis regularly. "Right now," Riddell noted when I talked to him in 1979, "there are a lot of guys who before each game like to hypnotize themselves. They call it 'psyching up.' They sit down, shut their eyes, and think of the water polo ball going into the goal."

This is an important story for any junior athlete to remember. It shows that self-hypnosis is extremely easy to learn and use. The Servite players took no expensive classes or read any books on hypnosis. Instead, they were hypnotized just once, by the coach's father. But, that one session was all it took for them to realize how they could hypnotize themselves. Because another coach took over the water polo assignment from McCall the following year (1979), these players were clearly using self-hypnosis on their own initiative. This voluntary practice must mean that the players found self-hypnosis helpful. If it was not, they would not have bothered with it.

These young water polo players set a tremendous example. Here were young men only 16 or 17 years old using self-hypnosis before each game. They figured out how to do self-hypnosis on their own, and practiced it on their own. No one told them they had to use it. This demonstrates a high degree of self-discipline and motivation—traits that are becoming hard to find in young men these days. Self-hypnosis, of course, will not provide you these traits. However, if you already possess a good strong character, it can definitely unlock the door to making you a much better athlete. The Servite High water polo players were impressive on both accounts, and this no doubt is why their example is so uplifting.

Dr. McCall asked for no money for the hypnosis session; he did ask for some recompense, though. As Riddell related, "After he was done, he said we owed him a favor. So, that weekend

we went to his property. We cut down a couple of trees and carted them away."

After talking to Riddell, I went to Dr. McCalPs office. Dr. McCall, a general practitioner, was in. Although quite busy, he chatted with me briefly. He said that besides the Servite High swimmers and water polo players, he had hypnotized football players, tennis players, baseball players—athletes in several different sports. He had, however, turned much of the sports hypnosis work over to his associate, Nick Lewter, who served as the hypnotist for Jerry Quarry and other boxers (see Boxing chapter). Most sports hypnotists and sports psychologists I have encountered simply do their own thing, and do not coordinate their activities or share their research with anyone else. Dr. McCall and Nick Lewter, though, teamed together. The success Lewter's athlete-clients have obtained, following in the footsteps of the success Dr. McCalPs athlete-clients enjoyed, illustrates the benefits increased cooperation between sports psychologists can yield.