The Super Mental Training Book (29 page)

. . . Rigert cited the immense concentration required in the sport. Once in practice, he said, he stood in shirt and trousers and focused on the weight for seven minutes and began sweating so much that his shirt stuck to his body. He said he often sweated off weight just concentrating in practice. [7]

We can justifiably conclude that one Soviet Olympic weight lifter, David Rigert, used hypnosis. Rigert's last-minute concentration procedure, his comments to Knipp and Shirley, and his incredible records point in this direction. Other top Soviet weight lifters no doubt practice this discipline as well. Shirley, for instance, reports in a September 7, 1983 L. A. Times article that super-heavyweight Anatoly Pisarenko, who in 1983 held the world record in the snatch and clean and jerk (total of 1014 pounds), "goes into deep trance-like concentration before attempting a competitive lift." [8] An intriguing picture of Pisarenko, showing him staring a la Rasputin, accompanies Shirley's remark in the Times article.

That Soviet Olympic weight lifters use hypnosis and visualization can also be inferred from the comments made by Professor Alexi Medvedev, the former world weightlifting champion in the heavyweight class, who now trains weightlifting coaches at the Central Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow. He says that "our coaches must be psychologists. . . The lifter must psychologically concentrate on his job. He must concentrate his emotions, feelings and faculties so he will not be distracted."[9] Mental rehearsal techniques, taught to the weight lifter by the coach, would help bring about this required concentration. Medvedev probably instructs weightlifting coaches in the proper usage and teaching of such techniques, given his strong belief that "our (Soviet weightlifting) coaches must be psychologists" and also given his own outstanding career. Having won the world championship in 1958, quite possibly Medvedev was introduced to hypnosis at some point along the way.

Charles A. Garfield, author of Peak Performance: Mental Training Techniques of the World's Greatest Athletes (1984), extensively studied the Soviet and East German sports training programs. He found that mental training was widely taught, especially to athletes at the international class level. Garfield states in his book the following:

In Soviet athletic training programs, two key skills must always be mastered. The first is the skill of voluntary relaxation—that is, the ability to relax the body

consciously and put the mind in a quiet receptive state. The second skill is the ability to produce and creatively manipulate mental images. This is the process frequently referred to as "visualization."[10]

Garfield is himself a former weight lifter. In 1976 he met Soviet sports psychologists at a scientific conference in Milan, Italy. The Soviet scientists demonstrated to him how mental training can greatly elevate athletic performance. Using Garfield as the subject in an improvised experiment, they assigned him the task of bench-pressing 300 pounds. Garfield had not worked out for months, and when he had done so, he rarely benched more than 280 pounds. So, it was only by generating a huge effort that he succeeded in lifting the 300 pounds. The Soviets then told Garfield that they wanted him to attempt to bench-press 365 pounds, which was his personal record set eight years previous. Garfield informed them that it would take him 9-12 months of serious training to get in condition to lift 365 pounds again. The scientists thought otherwise. After taking various physical measurements of Garfield—body fat percentage, small blood sample analysis, metabolic rate, etc.—they had him perform a mental rehearsal technique:

They asked me to lie on my back and proceeded to guide me into a deep state of relaxation. I was fully awake and alert, aware of everything going on around me. Yet every muscle in my body relaxed, and I felt more at ease than ever before in my life. They asked me to imagine my arms and legs becoming increasingly heavy and warm. A warm, tingling sensation spread over me.

... I was told to mentally visualize myself approaching the bar, sitting on the bench, lying down, and then, with total confidence, lifting the 365 pounds. I was also instructed to imagine the sounds I would hear, the dull metallic ring as the bar tipped slightly, jangling the weights together, the sound of my own breathing, and any vocalizing I ordinarily did when working out.[l 1]

This relaxation and visualization process lasted approximately 45 minutes whereupon Garfield proceeded, much to his surprise, to successfully bench-press the 365 pounds. The Soviet scientists informed him afterwards in a matter-of-fact way that they had calculated he could lift between 345 and 395 pounds. The visualization procedure merely brought to the surface Garfield's latent physical capabilities.

Garfield presents in his book a comprehensive mental training program for athletes—the program being a synthesis of what Soviet and East German sports psychologists have their top athletes follow. He says that the program will yield "dramatic changes... in two or three months" with continued practice. Yet, Garfield's own bench-pressing experience, under the guidance of the Soviet scientists, clearly shows that adoption of mental rehearsal techniques can, in many cases, bring about major improvement immediately (recall how Marshall Morris, after learning and then using self-hypnosis, improved his snatch from 198 pounds to 242 pounds—all this occurring in the same day). While athletes should not raise their expectations too high about the benefits mental training will provide them, still they should recognize and seek out the potential rewards one can experience from regularly practicing such mental disciplines as visualization and self-hypnosis.

Soviet sports psychologists have investigated how various forms of mental training affect weight lifters' performance. Some of their investigations are especially worthy of mention.

In a superb experiment V. S. Kopisov and A. D. Nagorniy studied the effects of electrosleep on top weight lifters. To appreciate this study, which was published in the December, 1983 issue of Soviet Sports Review, we need to understand exactly what electrosleep is. Kopisov and Nagorniy define it this way:

Electrosleep is a method of neurotrophic therapy which is based on the effect of im-

pulse currents on the brain. They allow for development of a state which is comparable to that of usual sleep but one which also has a therapeutic effect.

The key to therapeutic electrosleep is in its quieting or stimulating influence, depending upon the initial state of the body. These influences allow for recuperation of disturbances in the neurovascular, neurohumoral, neuroendocrine and other functional systems. [12]

To perform electrosleep one needs to use a special apparatus. In their experiment Kopisov and Nagorniy said that "electrosleep was carried out with the ES-3 and ES-4 devices." It might be difficult or inconvenient to obtain such a device; yet, as we shall see, the effort may prove very worthwhile. The two Soviet researchers studied 40 Master of Sport weight lifters, dividing them into two groups—one group using electrosleep, the other group serving as the control. The two groups performed identical training loads. "The load volume," Kopisov and Nagorniy reported, "was 1400 lifts with a relative intensity of 78.3%. The duration of the study was four weeks." In the electrosleep group, "every athlete had 14 electrosleep sessions which lasted 30-40 minutes each. Electrosleep frequency was 100-150 hz." (Current strength was 3-8mA.) The electrosleep sessions were undertaken either after lunch (2-4 P.M.), after dinner (7-10 P.M.), or immediately before night sleep. Electrosleep sessions were also held during competition; this took place during the break between the snatch and clean and jerk.

The results of the study speak quite favorably for the use of electrosleep. During the training period the electrosleep group made 12.3% more successful lifts involving maximum weight than the control group. Heart rate, anxiety level, and electroskin resistance of the lifters employing electrosleep also normalized much faster than the controls. In competition those weight lifters using electrosleep outperformed the other lifters by 16.5% in number of successful attempts. Kopisov and Nagorniy noted that "visual observation of the weight lifters' conduct revealed that those who used electrosleep showed more self-discipline in their actions." The two researchers summed up their findings this way:

Electrosleep significantly speeds up the process of optimizing the emotional state of weightlifters after intense training sessions. Use of electrosleep sessions increases the effectiveness of preparation and success in competition. [13]

Electrosleep seems to possess an advantage not found in most other mental training approaches. The athlete is hooked up to a machine, and he is awakened by an associate after a while. That appears to be all that is involved. The electrosleep device, being merely a machine with a single function, can hardly constitute a psychological threat to the athlete. By contrast, visualization, hypnosis, and similar mental techniques often entail an outsider who teaches and administers the discipline to the athlete; and frequently this outsider is assigned to work with the athlete on an on-going basis. Because an outsider is involved, the athlete has to develop trust in that person. He has to overcome many psychological apprehensions, such as: the fear that the outsider might be attempting some sort of "mind control;" the thought that maybe the person is using the athlete to make a name for himself, etc. In short, a clashing of egos can occur between an athlete and a "mental coach." No such clash can happen between the athlete and the electrosleep device, though the athlete might feel resentment towards his coach if the coach ordered him to use electrosleep.

The electrosleep machine's disadvantage is that it first has to be obtained, then maintained, and finally manned while in use. But, use of the electrosleep device is certainly much more cost-effective than hiring a sports psychologist to work with the athletes. Fellow athletes or the coach can no doubt easily man the electrosleep machine, turning it off and waking up the athlete at the appropriate time. The device would likely be "on call" more often than a team psychologist (who could be out of town, ill, etc.). Given electrosleep's unique advantages and the performance bene-

fits it confers, one hopes that more athletes will have occasion to try out the method. (Colleges and professional sports teams can easily afford the cost of an electrosleep device. It is simply a matter of the people in charge of the athletic program budget recognizing the machine's usefulness.)

A. A. Seimuk, Z. S. Arkhangorodsky, and U. K. Zaitsev trained advanced weight lifters in the use of autogenic training and autosuggestion. The scientists wanted to see how these mental disciplines, when used together, affected the athletes' heart rate, arterial pressure, and other physical measurements, as well as the athletes' psychological state (as determined by a 56-question test measuring self-feeling, activeness, and mood). The problem cited by Seimuk et al, in justifying their 1982 study, is that "increased volume and intensity, together with insufficient use of restorative measures in contemporary training of weightlifters, eventually leads to body fatigue."[13] Such fatigue results in poorer performances, i.e., less weight successfully lifted. It was hoped that the autogenic training and autosuggestion would prove to be a beneficial "restorative measure," meaning the lifter's heart rate, etc. would return to normal much sooner than usual after a training session.

The scientists took fourteen advanced Soviet weight lifters, ranging in ability from Candidates for Master of Sport to Masters of Sport, International Class, and had them mentally train 2-3 times daily using the following method:

1. An introductory portion to prepare the athlete for the forthcoming rest and for calming down;

2. Relaxation to achieve a feeling of warmth and relaxation in the muscles of the arms, legs, pelvic area, spine, abdomen, chest, neck and face;

3. Regulation of breathing and heart-circulatory activity;

4. Development of a feeling of confidence, satisfaction and a positive attitude toward heavy loads;

5. Preparation for and creation of a mental state for execution of the planned work; and

6. Activization.[14]

Steps 2 and 3 represent the autogenic training portion of the method, with autogenic training being simply defined as progressive relaxation. Steps 4, 5, and 6 constitute the autosuggestion portion—autosuggestion, or self-suggestion, being directives, commands or impressions one gives himself (usually done mentally and after one has attained a state of relaxation).

This six-step method was performed for 17-21 minutes after each weight training session, and it was adjusted to suit each athlete's particular circumstances. "Taken into consideration," remark Seimuk et al, "was the individual state of the athlete. Main attention was given to those muscles which were used the most in execution of the exercises performed during (weight) training." The fourteen lifters apparently served as both the experimental group and control group. This was accomplished by having the group go through two four-week cycles. "One training cycle," the scientists report, "was carried out without the use of autogenic training. The study took place during preparation for the two most important meets of the year. Both groups had practically identical load volumes and the level of trainedness of the lifters in both of the preparatory training periods was approximately the same."

Seimuk et at discovered that the autogenic training significantly improved the psychological state of the lifters, as expressed by higher scores on the self-feeling, activeness, and mood test. Also, measurements of the lifters' heart rate (HR), arterial pressure, etc. showed that physical "restoration" occurred much faster when autogenic training (AT) was used. For example, the sci-

entists stated that "in usual restoration (after 25 minutes) the indices measured do not return to the initial level;" but, "it can be seen that HR of athletes who used AT returns to the initial level at the 25th minute of restoration. Without use of AT, HR is 12 beats/min. higher than the initial level at this time."