When You Can't Strength Train: How Motor Imagery Can Help

Ask any athlete what happens after six weeks without training, and the answer is rarely optimistic. Injury, the off-season, a heavy travel schedule, or simply a demanding period of life can all force time away from the gym, and strength often seems to disappear with it.

But a growing body of research suggests that the nervous system can keep adapting even when the body is resting, through a technique known as motor imagery: the deliberate mental rehearsal of a movement.

This post explains what motor imagery is, what the evidence shows, why it works, how to practice it properly, and who stands to benefit most. It is worth being clear from the outset that imagery is not a shortcut to strength gains without physical training. Its effectiveness depends heavily on the athlete's imagery ability meaning, how clearly and vividly they can generate and control their mental images. Without this skill, the benefits are far more limited.

1. The Problem: Losing Strength When You Can't Train

Detraining affects every athlete eventually. Whether the cause is injury, a mandated rest period, or limited access to equipment, time away from physical training carries real consequences:

• Strength and power output begin to decline

• Neuromuscular adaptations built over months start to erode

• A single interruption can affect an entire competitive season

The question many athletes ask is whether anything can slow this decline when the gym simply isn't an option.

2. The Evidence: What the Research Shows

A 2021 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise examined this exact scenario, following thirty professional basketball players who lost gym access during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions (Dello Iacono et al., 2021).

Participants were split into three groups. Two groups completed motor imagery training, vividly imagining exercises such as the back squat and bench press three times a week for six weeks. A third group received no imagery training.

• The imagery groups improved strength and power by two to nine per cent

• The control group declined over the same period

• Imagining lifts at a high percentage of one-repetition maximum produced the greatest strength gains

• Imagining lifts at an optimal power load produced the greatest gains in explosive power

No physical repetitions were performed. The improvements came from imagery alone, a finding echoed in later work exploring motor imagery as a load management tool for athletes (McNeil et al., 2025).

3. The Science: Why Imagery Works

The explanation lies in the nervous system rather than the muscle itself. Vividly imagining a movement activates many of the same motor regions the brain uses during real execution.

This neural rehearsal reinforces the pathways responsible for motor unit recruitment, coordination, and force production. Over time, these pathways become more efficient, even without physical load. The muscles may be the engine, but the brain is the driver, and motor imagery keeps that driver sharp.

4. The Method: The PETTLEP Framework

Not all mental rehearsal is equally effective. Vaguely picturing a workout is unlikely to produce results. Imagery is a mental skill, and much like a physical skill, it improves with deliberate practice. Research shows that incorporating PETTLEP elements (Holmes & Collins, 2021), particularly the physical and environment components, predicts higher imagery ability (Anuar et al., 2017).

Sports scientists recommend the PETTLEP framework, a seven component model designed to make imagery as close as possible to the real movement:

• Physical: adopt the actual posture, grip, and stance of the exercise

• Environment: practice in or near the real training space, or recreate it using sensory cues

• Task: imagine the specific exercise, load, and technique rather than a generic workout

• Timing: perform the movement in real time, matching the pace of an actual repetition

• Learning: update the imagery as ability changes, particularly during rehabilitation

• Emotion: bring in the effort, focus, and physical sensations of the movement

• Perspective: use a first person viewpoint, experiencing the movement from within

A sample weekly protocol involves three sessions of fifteen to thirty minutes, working through three to five key exercises, each performed in real time with realistic rest periods between imagined sets, closely mirroring the original detraining study (Dello Iacono et al., 2021).

Improving Your Imagery Ability: Imagery ability isn't fixed. Sport psychologists can help athletes strengthen it using techniques such as layered stimulus response training. Read more in our related post, Esports: It's in the Imagery.

5. The Practice: Who It Helps and How to Start

Motor imagery is especially useful for athletes who are:

• Recovering from injury and unable to load certain muscle groups

• Traveling without access to equipment

• In the off-season and maintaining a strength baseline

• Managing training volume to avoid overtraining

• Developing technical skill without adding physical load

It works best as a supplement to physical training rather than a replacement for it, and imagery ability itself improves with practice, so early sessions may feel unfamiliar.

For athletes recovering from injury specifically, our earlier post, The Power of Mental Imagery in Injury Recovery, explores this application in more depth.

Try It This Week

Pick one strength exercise you know well and spend five minutes imagining a single set in real time, focusing on posture, movement, and effort. Try to see and feel the exercise as clearly and vividly as you can, as though you were performing it in real life. Experiment with different PETTLEP elements and notice what impact this has on your imagery of the exercise.

Consider sharing your experience with a coach, physiotherapist, or teammate!

Conclusion

Motor imagery challenges the idea that strength can only be built through physical repetition. By engaging the same neural pathways involved in movement execution, structured mental rehearsal offers athletes a genuine way to limit detraining during unavoidable breaks from training.

It will not replace time under the bar, but it may help preserve the strength, coordination, and confidence needed to return to it. A period away from training does not have to mean a period of lost progress.

---

Written by Alex Wakim

Alex is a MSc Physiotherapy student with a background in kinesiology and athletic therapy, and a clinical interest in sports and musculoskeletal rehabilitation.

References:

1. Anuar, N., Williams, S. E., & Cumming, J. (2016). Comparing PETTLEP imagery against observation imagery on vividness and ease of movement imagery. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 16(2), 150-163. https://doi.org/10.1080/1612197x.2016.1177104

2. Dello Iacono, A., Ashcroft, K., & Zubac, D. (2021). Ain’t just imagination! Effects of motor imagery training on strength and power performance of athletes during detraining. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 53(11), 2324-2332. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000002706

3. Desai, V., Stambulic, T., Grounds, R., Lea, J., & Westerberg, B. D. (2025). A scoping review of mental practice in athletes: How can surgeons learn? Journal of Surgical Education, 82(1), 103336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2024.103336

4. Frank, C., Land, W. M., Popp, C., & Schack, T. (2014). Mental representation and mental practice: experimental investigation on the functional links between motor memory and motor imagery. PLoS One, 9(4), e95175. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095175

5. Holmes, P. S., & Collins, D. J. (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13(1), 60-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200109339004

6. McNeil, D. G., Lindsay, R. S., Worn, R., Spittle, M., & Gabbett, T. J. (2024). Could motor imagery training provide a novel load management solution for athletes? Recommendations for sport medicine and performance practitioners. Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 17(1), 156-163. https://doi.org/10.1177/19417381241297161

7. Volgemute, K., Vazne, Z., & Malinauskas, R. (2025). The benefits of guided imagery on athletic performance: A mixed-methods approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1500194

8. Wakefield, C., & Smith, D. (2011). From strength to strength: A single-case design study of PETTLEP imagery frequency. The Sport Psychologist, 25(3), 305-320. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.25.3.305