Training Mental Imagery Skills in Virtual Reality for Elite Athletes

Project Summary

Mental imagery training is a widely used technique for athletes, helping them prepare for competition by mentally rehearsing motor actions, environments, and procedures. This project explored how virtual reality (VR) can enhance traditional mental imagery practice for alpine athletes—specifically when approaching the start gate and navigating downhill courses.

Virtual Reality provides access to realistic environments that athletes may not be able to visit due to travel, geographic distance, or mobility limitations. In the lead-up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, global pandemic restrictions significantly limited athletes’ ability to train on the actual competition slopes.

To address this challenge, HIT Lab NZ partnered with Snow Sports NZ and developed immersive VR tools to support athletes in preparing for their events despite restricted venue access. These VR tools enabled athletes to:

• Visualise the Beijing slopes
• Experience the race environment
• Rehearse the pre-race warm-up
• Train mental readiness

This VR-enhanced approach offered athletes a new level of immersion and opportunity for familiarization with the competition venue. Athletes reported significant benefits from the VR training tools, including:

• High satisfaction with the VR experience
• Increased confidence before competing
• Improved performance outcomes, contributing to New Zealand’s best-ever Winter Olympic and Paralympic medal results

As a global first, this approach has generated widespread international interest within high-performance sport communities.

Acknowledgement

This project was funded by High Performance Sports NZ.

Contact

Prof. Stephan Lukosch 

Research Publications

• Wu Y, Lukosch S, Lukosch H, Lindeman RW, McKee RD, Fukuden S, Ross C and Collins D (2023). Training mental imagery skills of elite athletes in virtual reality. Front. Virtual Real. 4:1189717. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2023.1189717
• Wu Y, Lukosch S, Lukosch H, Lindeman R, McKee R, Fukuden S, Ross C and Collins D (2022). Feasibility of Training Elite Athletes for Improving their Mental Imagery Ability Using Virtual Reality. In Workshop Proceedings – 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VRW). http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00172.

Media

• High Performance Sports NZ. (March 2022). Adam Hall’s Virtual Reality.
• Knowler, R. (4 March 2022). Paralympics: Alpine skier Adam Hall reveals the ‘insane’ technology for NZ team, Stuff Limited.

People