Zach Sorensen is a former Major League infielder and is currently the Mental Performance Coach for the Cincinnati Reds. He recently hosted a zoom call with members of Yeti Baseball travel program.
Below are some of the highlights of what he had to say:
Mental Imagery
-You don’t need to use every mental strategy but you need a foundation of strategies.
-Most athletes are taught to “step up” in the big moment, but the fact is that you sink to the level of your training, so if you work on your mental training, you will be ahead of your competition.
-Mental imagery is what you see in your mind.
-The brain does not know the difference between what you see and what you do.
-Prior to getting on the Zoom call, Zach attended the Reds vs Angels Spring Training game. He emphasized how lucky he feels to be able to work with Major Leaguers and youth athletes. Elly De La Cruz noted that he hadn’t gotten a hit in five days, and he told him, you need to first work on visualization before you get into the box.
-Close your eyes and watch yourself get a hit. To your brain, you actually got a hit.
-If you swing when you’re tired you can develop bad habits. That is when you should be working on visualizing your swing.
-During a study conducting by an NCAA basketball coach, he split his team into three groups. Group 1 didn’t do anything differently. Group 2 wasn’t allowed to leave practice until they made 25 free throws. Group 3 closed their eyes and visualized making 25 straight free throws. After 6 weeks, Group 1 was exactly the same, Group 2 improved by 24% while Group 3 improved by 23%. This means that they improved nearly as much without doing any of the physical work.
-Clayton Kershaw, one of the greatest pitchers of his generation, throws “dry” bullpens in which he has a ball in his hand, and works on his delivery without throwing the baseball.
-He worked with a TCU player that was disappointed in his lack of playing time. He told him that he needed to work on mental at bats.
-Zach asked Jake Harvey what he looks for when he watches video, Jake explained that he looks for what he does wrong.
-Zach stated that he spoke to Manny Ramirez about how he analyzes video. Manny told him that he can sit with him as he watches video. Zach noticed that Manny only watches his highlights. He watched three and a half straight minutes of doubles and home runs. Zach told him he should watch video of his strikeouts too so he can see what he’s doing wrong. Manny replied with, “that’s not me. Those strikeouts aren’t me.” That was a turning point moment for Zach who said you should watch a highlight reel of yourself with music in the background, because afterwards you feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof.
Mastering Self-Talk
-When you watch yourself success, your brain thinks you are really good.
-Humans have roughly 40-50 thoughts per minute.
-Zach asked the group if they have more positive or negative thoughts. He stated that from a study, 74% of your thoughts are negative. We need to do better than that.
-Listen to yourself less and talk to yourself more.
-When you have negative thoughts, and you try to counteract it with positive thoughts, you’ll end up going back to what you truly believe. How do you overcome that? Talk out loud. When you talk out loud, it overpowers what you’re thinking. That’s why players talk to themselves.
-You can program the things you want to say. When you feel nervous and think that you can’t, say positive things out loud.
-Often times when we hit a ball good, we don’t react. When we hit a ball bad, we get mad & disappointed. Change that.
-Think about reversing that and say ‘that’s me’ when you hit a ball well and if you don’t hit the ball well, say nothing. Make an error, say nothing, make a good play and say ‘that’s me.’
-Hunter Greene made the MLB All-Star Game and wore a shirt that says ‘That’s Me’ during his press conference. That’s how much power is behind that phrase.
Accountability Mirror
-Simplify the game. A coach once told me, “It’s an easy game, it’s the players that make it difficult.”
-Sean Casey kept a notecard in his back pocket during the games. He would take it out when he was on the On Deck circle. It would have three things that he wanted to think about in the box.
-Tension is poison – get it out of your body.
