The effects of internal and external imagery on performing figures in figure skating

The influence of mental imagery perspective on figure skating performance was investigated. Fifty-nine skaters, who were in attendance at the Canadian Figure Skating Association's National Singles Seminar, participated in the study. Subjects performed a modified senior level figure as a pre-test measure, and then were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: an internal kinesthetic imagery group, an internal visual imagery group, an external visual imagery group, and a control training group. All treatment groups underwent four training sessions. Post-test performance revealed no significant differences between the three types of imagery training, and imagery training subjects failed to perform significantly better than control subjects. However, senior skaters showed both greater performance improvements and were superior kinesthetic imagers than novice skaters.