Sports Imagery

Despite imagery being used within a variety of sports and general day to day tasks, many people do not acknowledge it as being imagery. Imagery its self can have many meanings within sport as Cumming and Ramsey (2009) expressed imagery as the use of combining different sensory modalities, through an experience that copies real life experiences, in the absence of actual perception whereas Morris et al (2005) interpreted imagery as a mental creation or re-creation of life experiences similar to the actual event. However imagery can also be examined though the eyes of the media or how society believes one should act or look. This causes detrimental effects either positively or negatively. An athletes Image or how society perceives them can influence the performance, self-confidence, and outcome of any competition, practice or training session.
Imagery is the mental practice/ rehearsal of visualisation to improve self-confidence and goal setting to increase motivation. To relieve or stimulate anxiety depending on self-confidence or in rehabilitation of an injury, where the focus could
1). The SIQ is used to test athletes to see how well they use imagery and to see where they can improve on technique. They are required to rate the experience of the imagery imagined in their mind out of 5 and tally up the scores. The highest achieved score is 20 in each section and the lowest is 4. The higher the score the greater the skill of the athlete, through imagery in that particular area. This questionnaire has been used in many studies to help athletes to improve their general skills but in different variations. The SIQ has been altered to accompany any certain area of interest (i.e. SIAQ- sport imagery ability questionnaire( Williams & Cumming, 2011) ,V MIQ- vividness of movement imagery questionnaire (Isaac et al.,1986) and the SIQ-C- sports imagery questionnaire for children (Hall et