Mental preparation, mental practice and strength tasks: A need for clarification

Mental preparation has long been thought of as an important aspect of physical performance, especially in tasks requiring muscular strength. Recent studies in sport psychology have addressed this issue, mainly through the investigation of 'psych-up' strategies and effects. The overall trend in such experiments supports the use of mental preparation strategies for strength tasks, but the evidence is less clear for other types of activities. A recent review on mental practice by Feltz and Landers (1983) employed a 'meta-analysis' technique to analyse the statistical trends in 60 studies of mental practice. They compared the 'effect sizes' for mental practice on cognitive, motor and strength tasks and reported a significantly larger effect size for cognitive tasks than for the others and only a small effect size for strength tasks. This suggests that mental practice is less effective in strength activities and thus appears to question the evidence reported in the 'psych-up' literature. This paper proposes, therefore, that a distinction is necessary between mental preparation and mental practice in order to clarify the findings. Future experiments and reviews must address the issue of distinguishing between types of mental strategies and types of tasks in both practice and preparation.