Mind Over Matter-Mental Training Increases Physical Strength

At Bishops University, Erin Shackell and Lionel Standing conducted a study with 30 male athletes including football players, basketball players and rugby players. They were randomly picked to perform mental training of their hip flexor muscles, to use weight machines to physically exercise their hip flexors, or to form a control group which didn't get any mental or physical training. The hip strength was measured before and after the training session. Believe it or not but the group that practiced the mental training was increased by 24%. Strength was increased as well by physical training with a 28% increase! It did not change significally by the control group. The greatest gain was not surprisingly with the football players that were given the mental training. The physical and mental training produced similar heart rates, and both had a bit of a difference in the systolic blood pressure by a bit of a reduction. There were similar findings in 2004 by Ranganathan, Siemionow, Liu, Sahgal and Yue.

Mental training is becoming more and more common to enhance athletic performances. By using mental imagery of themselves performing an activity or cognitive skill, the participants are able to do the activity in their minds without actually doing the activity. They do this before doing it in the area of their expertise. Some professional sports teams often utilize mental training programs for their athletes almost as much as doing the physical training.