The Raising the Champion Blog is updated every Monday
The Power of Mental Training
Published Nov. 5th, 2018
About a 7 minute read
As a boy growing up in the Midwest, in Wisconsin, I played the typical school seasonal sports! Track in the spring, baseball and tennis in the summer, football in the fall, and basketball in the winter! In the winter, I had access to this small old gym, where I would practice shooting buckets… a lot! This old gym is torn down now, but for years I would go there and practice.  

I didn’t know much about mental training at the time, but when I was in the gym alone, I would start out close to the bucket and shoot a bunch of balls. Then I would close my eyes and shoot some more, from the same spots. I started doing that more.  First from close range and then I’d move further out. Always challenging my ability to see the hoop with my “mental” eyes, my imagination!

I would start doing the same technique practicing free throws! I’d shoot ten free throws with my eyes open, and ten with my eyes shut! Then two with my eyes opened followed by two with my eyes shut! Over time and with more practice, I discovered that my free throw shooting percentage with my eyes closed was getting closer to my percentage while shooting with my eyes open. I improved my free throw percentage by practicing with my eyes closed! I could close my eyes, use my imagination, and make the basket. Imagine that! Lol!

Years later, I listened to this inspirational tape of Denis Waitley, PhD. It changed my life! During the 1980s and 1990s, Waitley used a technique, called Visual Motor Rehearsal, in the Olympics training program. He said, “When you visualize, then you materialize.  The interesting thing about the mind is we took Olympic athletes and then hooked them up to sophisticated biofeedback equipment, and had them run their event only in their mind. Incredibly, the same muscles fired in the same sequence when they were running the race in their mind, as when they were running on the track. How could this be? Because the mind cannot distinguish whether you’re really doing it, or whether it’s just a practice. I believe if you’ve been there in the mind, you’ll go there in the body too.”
Complete Performance by Mattek (CP) is a company founded by Tim and his two sons that is dedicated to the training and development of junior athletes. CP is leading the tennis industry in helping young players overcome mental barriers, execute at a high level consistently, and develop as a player as well as a person. To find out more click here.
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Waitley tells the story of an Air Force Colonel, who was captured during the Vietnam War and spent many years as a POW in a North Vietnamese prison. This Colonel loved golf, and each day while in prison, he would visualized playing 18 holes. He would imagine each club needed, his approach to the ball, green pitch, and his swings. All the while, believing that when he got out of his hell hole, he’d be ready to play golf. This guy had lost a ton of weight and shortly 
Waitley tells the story of an Air Force Colonel, who was captured during the Vietnam War and spent many years as a POW in a North Vietnamese prison. This Colonel loved golf, and each day, while in prison, he would visualized playing 18 holes. He would imagine each club needed, his approach to the ball, green pitch, and his swings. All the while, believing that when he got out of his hell hole, he’d be ready to play golf. This guy had lost a ton of weight, and shortly after he was released from his POW camp, he entered a pro golf event and miraculously shot a 76.

I thought that was crazy. And when Bethanie started showing a bigger interest in tennis, I would think that this mental stuff could also apply to a complex sport like tennis, right? So, I made it a mission to learn how to apply mental training to the sport of tennis.
after he was released from his POW camp, he entered a pro golf event and miraculously shot a 76.
I thought that was crazy. When Bethanie started showing a bigger interest in tennis, I would think that this mental stuff could also apply to a complex sport like tennis, right? So, I made it a mission to learn how to apply mental training to the sport of tennis.
Everyone knows that mental training is important, yet only a very few actually do it.
A huge piece missing from the tennis development puzzle or any human development for that matter, is mental training! Everyone knows that mental training is important, and only a very few do it. Why is that?  

When I ask parents and players around the country to tell me, on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being 0% and 10 being 100%, how important is mental training, they usually say 6-8. When asked what percentage of their total training is mental training, the answer is usually 0. Then I ask why they don’t do any mental training when they know mental training is so important. They say they don’t know exactly what mental training is or how to do it.

Maybe now you can start to understand why the current tennis development model is so broken. In fact, the current system of developing tennis players is founded on failure. The system makes their livelihood on fixing things, like forehands, backhands, serves, and volleys. But what if these “things” were never broken in the first place. Is that even possible?
The answer is yes! At CP we found ways to do it! Over the years, we partnered with tennis experts and non-tennis experts in psychology that assisted us 
The answer is yes! At CP we found ways to do it! Over the years, we partnered with tennis experts and non-tennis experts in psychology that assisted us to create off-court Visual Cues and Audio Cues (mental training tools). Mental tools that give the athlete’s brain ample time to connect the dots on the important technical aspects of a stroke, like a forehand or backhand.

We tried, tested, and improved these mental tools over decades (and thousands of hours) of clinical off and on-court testing, and we found that they work. They worked for Bethanie, and they worked for hundreds of other aspiring athletes.
to create off-court Visual Cues and Audio Cues (mental training tools). Mental tools that give the athlete’s brain ample time to connect the dots on the important technical aspects of a stroke, like a forehand or backhand.

We tried, tested, and improved these mental tools over decades (and thousands of hours) of clinical off and on-court testing and we found that they work. They worked for Bethanie and they worked for hundreds of other aspiring athletes.
If it isn’t broke don’t fix it!
Athletes, as young as 7-9 years old, who train off-court with Visual Cue and Audio Cue mental training tools improved faster than athletes who don’t use these mental training tools. Even their coaches notice the improvements. Parents get fired up because they don’t have to waste money having coaches keep reminding their kid over and over again to do the basic things, like move their feet, breathe, accelerate the racket, or bend their knees. Jeez, how much money do you have to spend getting your child to inhale on their backswing! In turn, the coaches get fired up because they’re able to progress their students faster and work on more advanced skills and strategies. In fact, more and more academy and club directors are reaching out to CP wanting to integrate mental training into their programs.

We even get videos from young players using our mental training, thanking us for helping them discover the importance of mental training. Take a listen to this young sweetheart!
Now you know that your son or daughter can be more prepared for their lessons and matches on court, improve faster, and get better performance results just by watching a forehand Visual Cue exercise for ten minutes, four days a week. They can do mental training in the privacy of their house or on the way to practice and then go on the practice court and start hitting solid forehands in their drills.
It’s amazing how some pretty small changes can get big results in your child’s tennis development!
Until next time,
Tim
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Enjoying Tim's Blog? Share it with others!
Enjoying Tim's Blog? Share it with others!
Resources
-Tennis Made Simple-
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