Listening To Your Body Using Visualization Techniques

By Scott Muzinski, DC, NMD

The ability to study and analyze your body's abilities is called visualization. Once you get into the habit of including everyday physical activities like aerobic, muscle endurance and resistance, and stretching into your week, you will find yourself becoming more attuned to your body's needs. Often you will get a feeling of what your body can and cannot do. Sometimes you can visualize in your mind your strengths and weaknesses.

The idea of using visual imaging to help a person prepare and train for their activity and specific sport or event has been around for quite a while. If you saw any of the Olympics you could have noticed that many athletes, like gymnasts, are mentally preparing before their event, seeing their routine in their mind's eye before doing it. Many Olympic, professional, and semiprofessional athletes augment their training with visualization techniques.

Often your subconscious can communicate with your conscious through this process, giving you insight into your strengths and weaknesses and allowing you to focus on fixing your weaknesses. You may find that old injuries such as sprained and strained ankles or knees may influence your visualization abilities.

The author can think of one case specifically where the athlete, a Tae Kwon Do artist, could not perform a standing spin kick on the left side as well as he could on the right. This was accompanied by the fact that he could not visualize (mentally see) himself doing the kick to the left side. He was examined and found to have a minor tear in his anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee, causing some instability in the final phase of his kicking motion when he kicked with his left foot, and used his right leg to stand and spin on. Given exercises to specifically strengthen and condition the weakened knee, he was able to start performing the kick and was also able to visualize himself doing the kick.

This can apply to any person doing any life activity or sport. Examine your weaknesses and use visualization. Discuss them with your training partner, coach, chiropractor, physical therapist or health care provider. With some analysis of your body mechanics you will be able to find and fix weaknesses in your body. Once you have completed some training and prepared your body to perform physically, it will be easier to visualize doing the activity.