By Guy McCully in 2020.
We’ve seen Slopestyle athletes standing at the top of a course getting into ‘The Zone’. They’re mentally going through all the movements associated with doing the tricks in their run while statically reproducing their run on the spot. They’re using what we call the mind muscle connection.
To perform technical tricks and movements with high accuracy, for years competitive snowboard athletes have used visualisation and motor imagery. For snowboard instructors and trainers, having a greater understanding of the mind muscle connection can be both beneficial to our own snowboarding performance and our coaching and training skills to help our students reach and perform at a higher level.
Motor imagery is a cognitive process when one imagines that they perform a movement without actually performing it (Dickstein & Deutsch, 2007). The motor action of the muscles is activated internally without any muscle tension or motor output. We are consciously aware of the motor activation in the muscles but we voluntarily inhibit the active movement (Mudler, 2007).
Athletes and bodybuilders have been using Mind Muscle Connection for decades to increase their ability to perform (Weinberg, 2008, Dickstein & Deutsch, 2007). There is a direct relationship between athletes that use motor imagery and visualisation and an increase in their overall performance (Mizuguchi et al, 2012).
Neurophysiological research has highlighted the underlying connection between the muscles and the mind (Moran et al, 2012). Clark et al., 2014, found that the brain cortex and the connection to the muscle can be activated in the body even when the physical movement is prevented. They looked at muscle wastage in immobilised wrists. They found those that performed mental imagery by activating the muscles of the wrist lost 50% less muscle and strength. This suggests that visual imagery activates the same neural pathways similar to performing the real action. Similar experiments have shown motor imagery in helping the rehabilitation of stroke patients and those with neurological damage to learn and gain back the physical movement they imagine (Sharma et al, 2006). In fact, mental imagery alone can increase strength in athletes muscles up to 25% (Shackell & Standing, 2007).
It is clear that motor imagery is a powerful tool. It will activate the same pathways that would have been activated if done with the same physical intention (Moran et al, 2012). The same neural pathways activated during snowboarding can therefore be utilised with motor imagery, increasing the mind-muscle connection, the strength, the power and the balance involved without physically moving.
Now let’s look at how we can increase performance in snowboarding and in this case specifically an ollie though the implementation of motor imagery. Before you start sliding, take a few seconds to close your eyes and imagine physically increasing tension in your core using the abdominals and the obliques. Then at the same time image the contraction of the muscles in the gluteus-maximus, the quadriceps, the hamstrings and the calves, throughout the extension of the ollie. The motor imagery present here will activate some of the same motor pathways that are firing when physically performing the trick so we begin creating a more solid connection between brain and body.
Now run through the actual movements, flexing and extending on the spot, but not leaving the ground. This results in physical contraction of the primary muscles being used, in this case muscles in the legs and core. There will be increased blood flow and tension in the muscles with pre-activated muscle fibres leading to a subsequent increase muscle recruitment, or in other words the percentage of muscle use. The power of the ollie is increased. The same concept can be applied to other freestyle tricks by focusing on different muscle groups.
In conclusion, when performing a trick or technical movement in snowboarding it is advantageous to achieve a quality contraction of the relevant muscles and enhance connectivity between brain and body. We can do this through motor imagery and static activation before performing the movement to create a solid mind muscle connection. This, when practised effectively and frequently, will promote stability, power, and accuracy leading to an overall improvement in our performance.
References
Clark, B. C., Mahato, N. K., Nakazawa, M., Law, T. D., & Thomas, J. S. (2014). The power of the mind: the cortex as a critical determinant of muscle strength/weakness. Journal of neurophysiology, 112(12), 3219-3226.
Dickstein, R., & Deutsch, J. E. (2007). Motor imagery in physical therapist practice. Physical therapy, 87(7), 942-953.
Moran, A., Guillot, A., MacIntyre, T., & Collet, C. (2012). Re-imagining motor imagery: Building bridges between cognitive neuroscience and sport psychology. British Journal of Psychology, 103(2), 224-247.
Mulder, T. (2007). Motor imagery and action observation: cognitive tools for rehabilitation. Journal of neural transmission, 114(10), 1265-1278.
Mizuguchi, N., Nakata, H., Uchida, Y., & Kanosue, K. (2012). Motor imagery and sport performance. The Journal of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine, 1(1), 103-111
Shackell, E. M., & Standing, L. G. (2007). Mind Over Matter: Mental Training Increases Physical Strength. North American Journal of Psychology, 9(1).
Sharma, N., Pomeroy, V. M., & Baron, J. C. (2006). Motor imagery: a backdoor to the motor system after stroke?. Stroke, 37( 7), 1941-1952.
Weinberg, R. S. (2008). Does imagery work? Effects on performance and mental skills. Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity, 3, 1–21. doi:10.2202/1932-0191.1025