The opportunity for all Solution-Focused Hypnotherapists in working with sports people is tremendous. Glenn Catley explains how hypnotherapy helped him to perform at his very best on the night, taking the title of World Champion Boxer in the Super Middleweight division.

Perhaps the greatest help we can give sports people in improving their performance, like Glenn, is confidence in their own innate ability.

Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy has its foundations rooted in what we know about the brain and how our brain works most efficiently. The more a person understands about the real way their brain functions, then the greater the progress can be made, not only in sports but in life generally.

Often when a person is struggling to achieve their best time, attempting to perfect their golf swing or mastering their nerves before a big race, their focus is on what could go wrong. This type of thinking is the precise reason why they have difficulties, it doesn’t help them improve. Sport is not all about physical ability, although it is that. It is also about mental ability. You often hear on the golf course:

‘I can hit the ball well in practice, but when it’s a competition the nerves take over’.

Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy provides our clients with an understanding, a perspective and a vision and how they can make it possible. When people direct their thoughts towards what they would specifically like to be doing differently, then they will get a specific result.  You know it makes sense! At CPHT we are very successful at producing clinical hypnotherapists that understand how people can enhance their performance.

Hypnotherapy also uses aspects of mental rehearsal, a concept that has around for many years. The Russian gymnast team in the Sydney Olympics in 1956 used visualisation techniques. Eleven hypnotherapists accompanied the team and it proved an overwhelming success, with the Russian team being placed at the top of the medal table.

Many top sports people use visualisation techniques to optimise their performance. In the London 2012 Olympics, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Heptathlon Gold medallist revealed:

“I use visualisation to think about the perfect technique. If I can get that perfect image in my head, then hopefully it’ll affect my physical performance.”

English Rugby Union player, Jonny Wilkinson regularly performs visualisation sessions before games.

“You are creating the sights, sounds, smells, the atmosphere, the sensation and the nerves, right down to the early morning wake-up call and that feeling in your stomach. It helps your body to get used to performing under pressure.”

It’s a fascinating area and if you think that this is something that you would enjoy helping people with, then contact us. You could be joining us on the next CPHT Hypnotherapy training course.