Australian psychologist Alan Richardson discovered that a group of basketball players who were instructed to visualize themselves making free throws every day but who did not physically practice did almost as well as another group who practiced shooting free throws for twenty minutes a day. Another study compared people who went to the gym every day with people who imagined themselves working out. The group who went to the gym every day increased their muscle strength by 30 percent; the group who ran through the workout in their heads increased their strength by 13.5 percent—almost half the
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