The Super Mental Training Book (46 page)

3. Zacariya Ar-Razi, A Treatise on the Small-Pox and Measles, (London: Sydenham Society, 1848), pp. 165-166.

4. Dan Lauck, "The Science of Psyching," Sky magazine (published by Delta Air Lines), June, 1978, p. 23.

5. Ibid., p. 22.

6. John Strege, "Kicked Around," Orange County Register, January 17, 1985, p. E4.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Chuck Abair, "Steinke Kicks 51-yarder to Lift Titans and Leave Boise State in a Trance," Orange County Register, September 4, 1983, p. Dl.

10. John Weyler, "Greg Steinke Is in No Hurry," Los Angeles Times, September 22, 1983, Part III, p. 10.

11. Ibid.

12. "'Hypnotic Coach' Is Forum Speaker," Fullerton Chamber of Commerce Business Review, May, 1983, p. 1.

13. David Osterman, "Getting His Kicks," Orange County Register, October 5, 1983, p. CI.

14. Ibid.

15. "Morning Briefing," Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1982, Part III, p. 2.

16. Bob Oates, Jr., The Winner's Edge, (New York: Mayflower Books, 1980), p. 58.

17. Ibid., p. 160.

18. Ibid., p. 172.

19. "Rams Win One for Injured Haden," Fullerton News Tribune, October 12, 1981, p. A5.

20. In late September, 1979,1 encountered a frustrated 12-year-old boy, Jeff Gillespie, who was practicing field goals—and not making too many of them. Gillespie had just been promoted to field goal kicker on his Pop Warner team, the Fuller-

ton Rams, and was extremely anxious to do well. His workout was not going the way he wanted, however. Von Scha-mann's experience came to mind, and I thought a small mental boost was probably all the boy needed. I told Jeff, "I want you to try a little drill. Close your eyes for thirty seconds, and visualize the ball going through the uprights. Just think of how the ball should be kicked." The boy did this, opened his eyes, and began kicking perfect, high-arched field goals. Needless to say, Jeff was elated by this turnaround in his kicking performance. The lesson is, if a 12-year-old boy can learn and successfully use a simple visualization drill, any of us, from the young to the old-timer, can do the same.

21. Steve Grimley, "Salisbury Sharpens Focus on Football," Orange County Register, August 23, 1985, p. F13.

22. Mai Florence, "Salisbury Has Task to Finish at USC," Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1985, Part III, p. 1.

23. Stan Isle, "Illini Secret: All in the Head," The Sporting News, January 2, 1984.

24. Steve Grimley, "The California Connection," Orange County Register, January 2, 1984, p. D15.

25. "Activity De-activated Illini—Sez Here!" Fullerton News Tribune, January 10, 1984, p. 2B.

26. This seems to have been the case. Informed Smith, "I told Mike it would be great to slip away the last 48 hours and avoid all those distractions. But we have a contract with the hotel, so legally we can't."

27. "Activity De-activated Illini—Sez Here!" op. cit.

28. Eugene F. Gauron, Mental Training for Peak Performance, (Lansing, New York: SportScience Associates, 1984), p. ii-iii.

29. Ibid., p. Hi.

30. Ibid.

31. Dave Strege, "Fry Leaves the Hawkeyes Home," Orange County Register, December 7, 1985, p. D7.

32. Ibid.

33. Dave Strege, "Stevens to Start at Quarterback," Orange County Register, December 30, 1985, p. D5.

34. Lauck, op. cit., p. 24.

35. Lauck mentions that the Phoenix Suns once had their players take psychological tests. He informs us: "The report on one player described him as coachable, caring, well disciplined, selfless. 'At the time,' said a man in the Suns' organization, 'he had run about three coaches out of the NBA.'" Tossing out another barb, Lauck relates that "the very successful head coach of another NFL team was profiled as 'not a good leader.'"

36. Lauck, op. cit.

37. Ibid.

38. Ferd Lewis, "Strolls Through Coals Leave 'Bows Fired Up," Honolulu Advertiser, August 14, 1985, p. A-l.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. What can be called hypnosis made its presence felt during the firewalk. Lewis reports that as the players performed the firewalk, they were "urged on by the upraised fists and chants of their teammates—chants of 'cool moss, cool moss.'" The repetitious chanting of "cool moss," being directed at individuals in a susceptible state of mind, had the impact of a hypnotic suggestion.

42. Lewis, op. cit.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Dr. Unestahl's remarks on how to handle and control expectation levels are quite instructive (see Recent Developments in Sports Psychology and Mental Training chapter).

47. Beth Ann Krier, "Olympians Exercising in Mind Arena," Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1983, Part 1, p. 1.

48. Bud Winter, Relax & Win: Championship Performance in Whatever You Do, (San Diego, California: A. S. Barnes, 1981), p. 223.

49. Ibid., p. 234.

50. Dr. Nideffer, in The Inner Athlete, mentions his being invited in 1973 to speak to the Buffalo Bills during one of their mini-training camps. "I had been asked," he recalls, "to talk to the team to give them ideas about what they could do to get ready mentally for the coming season. When (Coach) Lou Saban introduced me, he emphasized to the players that I was there because they were thinking men, not animals." There is little more to this story, and one does not get the impression that Dr. Nideffer worked with the Bills throughout the season.

51. Winter, op. cit., p. 229.

52. Susan Fornoff, "Hypnosis Moves Onto the Diamond," USA Today, June 30, 1983, Section C, p. 1.

53. Michele Himmelberg, "Mind Games," Orange County Register, August 20, 1985, p. CI.

54. Ibid.

55. Michele Himmelberg, "Head Start: Psychological Tests Help Evaluations," Orange County Register, August 20, 1985, p. C7.

56. Ibid.

57. Dick Vermeil shared some thoughts along these lines with Bud Winter in Relax & Win. Said Vermeil, "I think there is room for it (a mental relaxation program), especially for coaches. I am one who really needs to learn to control my intensity level, my own emotions, and I'm sure a course that was well organized would help me."

58. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., M.D., "Occasional Notes — Psychiatric Consultation in Professional Football," The New England Journal of Medicine, April 23, 1987, Vol. 316, No. 17, pp. 1095-1100.

59. Ibid.

60. David Wessel, "Is This the Same Guy Who Helped the Red Sox in the World Series?" Wall Street Journal, April 24, 1987, p. 37.

61. Nicholi, op. cit.

MENTAL TRAINING STRATEGIES TIME LINE (RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN MENTAL TRAINING)

A Y

s

L E

A D I

N G

T O

T H E

M P E T I

T I

O N

T H E

C 0

M

P

E

T

I

T

I

0

N

Expect to Win

(Athletes perform better with this expectation in mind, say Patton and Ness)

Use of a Hypnotic Cue

(Dr. Unestahl; Dr. Ravizza taught U.S. Olympic field hockey players to regroup by looking at a "focal point")

Use of Imagery

(World gymnastics champion Boris Shaklin practiced this before each routine; Greg Louganis; California Angels pitchers use a "pre-pitch routine")

Studying Mental Training Books/Tapes

(Many are available, one good source being Human Kinetics Publishers; Dr. Nideffer and Dr. Unestahl urge coaches to be their own sports psychologists, while the author and Ed Arcaro emphasize that the athlete become such)

Mental Preparation for a Specific Competition

(Dr. Unestahl's Tape III contains instructions on activation, posthypnotic suggestions, and mental rehearsal of the upcoming competition)

"Relaxation"

(Pole vaulter Dan Ripley employed Coach Winter's self-hypnosis method just before setting the world record)

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

IN SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY AND MENTAL TRAINING

During the last ten years the field of sports psychology has experienced many advanced developments, and much new information has come to light. The trend reveals mental training in particular gaining wider acceptance by sports participants because of: 1) ever-expanding and generally successful work with athletes by sports psychologists; 2) more books, articles, as well as audio and videotapes on mental training becoming available all the time, leading to a better informed clientele (the athletes and coaches); and 3) refinements and improvements in the practical application of mental training constantly being discovered and employed. In this chapter we shall look at some of these recent developments, concentrating on those of primary importance to the athlete.

The "Mental Training Gap" Reexamined

In our Soviet Athlete chapter we witnessed many charges that the U.S. Olympic sports program is years behind the Soviet Union in applying principles of sports psychology. Our athletes especially need more work in the area of mental training, say the critics. Interestingly, top U.S. track and field athletes for decades used "relaxation" (self-hypnosis) long before the critics appeared on the scene. A "mental training gap" did exist—with U.S. track and field athletes being way in front of the Soviets in applying mental disciplines!

In 1981 a remarkable book was published, Relax & Win, authored by the late Bud Winter, the San Jose State University track coach for 30 years. In this book Winter, the "king of sprint coaches," detailed the mental preparation techniques he taught his athletes. The main mental discipline he promoted was "relaxation," a way to overcome stress and tension which he first taught to U.S. pilots during World War II. Coach Winter briefly relates the ensuing history of this technique:

After World War II, all of the successful knowledge, testing, exercises and results of the relaxation course at Del Monte Pre-Flight were inculcated into our track program at San Jose State University. The results: thirty-seven world records. If you will pardon any reference to myself, I would like to point out the efficacy and good results we got from applying relaxation to a sport.

At one time, "little" San Jose State held every world record in the sprints from 50 yards through the 440 and a record in the 800-meter and 880-yard relays, and an American record in the mile relay. In the 1968 Olympic Games, athletes from San Jose State won more gold medals than the entire track team from Soviet Russia.

We preached relaxation from the time the athletes started their warm-up until they unlaced their shoes at the end of the workout. The commands "Take those wrinkles out of your forehead," "loose jaw, loose hands," and "drop those shoulders" echoed and reechoed from the track stadium walls. [1]

As Winter points out, the Soviet track and field athletes won fewer gold medals during the '68 Olympics than just those U.S. track members who had attended San Jose State and learned "relaxation" while there. The critics have never mentioned this "unfair" situation, probably

because they are unaware of Coach Winter's work or they entertain a double standard (when U.S. athletes win, "everything is fine;" when the Soviets win, "their training techniques are light-years in advance of ours"). To be consistent one must note the performance of U.S. athletes under Winter's guidance as well as recent outstanding performances of Soviet and East German athletes, who presumably are now taught and regularly practice mental training strategies.

The "relaxation" technique Coach Winter taught his athletes contained two major components: 1) relaxation per se, and 2) a "mental set." The first component called for the athlete to progressively relax his body, from one muscle group to another. Winter guided the athlete at first, and then after six weeks or so, the athlete usually could carry out the relaxation on his own. An extract of the "relaxation" procedure Coach Winter presented to the athlete follows:

I want you to breathe slowly and regularly. As you exhale, breathe out your tensions. Sigh audibly if you wish. Now, let your jaw sag. Let it go more. If you do this properly, your jaw will drop open. Now, even relax your lips and tongue... If your jaw is relaxed, it is a good bet your whole upper body is relaxed... Now I want you to let go all the muscles that hold up your head. If you do this correctly, your chin will drop and touch your chest. Breathe slowly.

To get rid of all the tensions of your head and neck, drop your shoulders as low as they will go. Get them down there—lower. You should feel all the tensions go out of your neck. Don't try too hard, just let go. Remember to breathe slowly and regularly. As you exhale, drop your tensions. [2]

The second component of Winter's "relaxation" technique involves the creation of a so-called "mental set." In his book Coach Winter tries to make a fine distinction between "mental set" and giving oneself hypnotic suggestions, stating that "the compulsion to perform is not as strong as under hypnosis;" but, he does not back up this contention with any evidence. I personally believe that Winter's "mental set" is just another name for autosuggestion, and Winter himself admits that "mental set is allied to posthypnotic set." The San Jose State track legend discusses how one can create a "mental set":

To set your mind, you make up a short slogan that expresses the attitude in which you want your mind during a pressure situation. Then you get into as total a relaxation state as you can. When totally relaxed, repeat the slogan over and over, at least three or four times. For example, before an examination you might say:

"In tomorrow's exam, I will be cool and confident."

"Tomorrow I will be cool and confident all day."

. . . You see, when you are relaxed, your subconscious mind is very suggestible. [3]

For track athletes who will be running a race, Winter suggests that after they relax, they give themselves this "mental set" slogan (autosuggestion): "I am going to run fast and loose." He also urges athletes to develop a conditioned-reflex capability to deal with tense situations. The nervous athlete should repeat the word "calm" to himself, and, according to Coach Winter, "if you have practiced enough in associating this word with the relaxed state, you will be relaxed at once."