When you practice a sport, or pursue a fitness regimen, or train in a martial art, there are a number of movements you have to learn in order to achieve mastery. You practice these movements again and again on the field, or in the gym, or in the dojo. You train them until your muscle memory allows performance of these movements nearly without thought. Yet, it turns out that thought, especially outside of training, can be one of the most important factors in training.

Studies have shown that athletes who think about training — even when not actually training — tend to perform better when it’s time to apply their skills than those who only focus during actual training sessions. When we think about movement, we utilize the same neurons in the brain that fire when we actually perform the movement itself. While this is no substitute for actual performance, visualizing a learned series of motions can help the mind retain the sequence and execution of those movements, even when actual movement is either not feasible or not possible.

As you can imagine, the implications of this are profound. Before you embark upon your next regimen of training — whether it’s to gain strength in the gym, or tackling a particularly tricky set of kata in the dojo — try to mentally go through the set of movements you would normally physically execute. Envision yourself doing them perfectly and without hesitation. Repeat the visualization any number of times, making sure you go through the full set of motions without skipping anything. See if you find yourself more easily able to perform these movements the next time you’re called upon to actually effect them.

As an advanced exercise, envision yourself doing movements you haven’t learned yet, or haven’t put into practice yet. You may find that once you’ve reached that point in your actual regimen, that you will do them much better than you’d anticipated.