Exploring mental imagery in swimmers: A single-case study design

Abstract

Mental imagery. or the capacity to represent cognitively experiences of things which are not physically present. is used extensively by athletes in an effort to enhance their skills and to improve their performance in competitive settings. However. research on imagery in sport has largely neglected two questions. First. what effect does imagery training have on the performance of elite athletes? Second. does imagery training facilitate the acquisition of complex sport skills in field settings? In order to address these questions. the present study used a single-case design to evaluate the efficacy of an imagery-based intervention procedure in improving the performance of the ‘freestyle turn’ in swimming. Four expert swimmers (two males and two females) participated in this study. These swimmers (aged between 16 and 17 years) were recruited from the Irish international swimming squad. Using a multiple-baseline-across-individuals design. a specially prepared imagery intervention was introduced after pre-treatment assessment of the freestyle turn. The time required to execute this turn was recorded in hundredths of a second. The imagei:y intervention was administered over 50 days in a 12-week period. Results revealed that none of the four swimmers showed significant improvement in the speeds with which they executed the freestyle turn. These findings may be attributable to methodological weaknesses. however. For example. the swimmers were not matched for imagery abilities initially. The paper concludes by discussing some of the conceptual and methodological issues raised by the use of shlgle-case designs in imagery research with athletes.