Athletic training often conjures the image of athletes running suicides in the gym or taking swings in a batting cage. Bowdoin’s Director of the Counseling Service and Wellness Programs, Dr. Bernie Hershberger, however, likes to approach athletic training from a different perspective—focusing on the mental aspect of performance rather than the physical one. 

“Most athletes recognize that about 70-80 percent of game performance is mental, but most athletes spend only 10 percent of their training time thinking about their mental game,” said Hershberger.

Hershberger said he believes that mind-body integration, meditation and hypnotherapy all work hand-in-hand and have drawn him into the field of sports psychology. 

He calls his training sessions “visualizations” because he helps teams to visualize and thereby implement the game-day goals  they want to achieve. 

Football and women’s basketball were the first two teams at Bowdoin to try this training with Hershberger roughly six or seven years ago. While football no longer trains using his techniques, women’s basketball continues to attend training sessions with him about five to eight times a season. 

Hershberger in general finds that women’s sports tend to be more interested in his services: he also works with women’s softball, volleyball and lacrosse. Hershberger is just starting to work with men’s teams again, specifically men’s tennis. Hershberger’s sessions differ for women and men.          

“I wouldn’t say to the men, ‘OK, lay down and each of you touch the teammate beside you and we’ll make a spider-web of connections,’” he said. “At best I would get men to sit in a circle shoulder to shoulder.”

In an average session, Hershberger starts by asking the athletes what they need to play at their highest level, helping them write a positive “script” together. He then tries to relax the players’ bodies and minds because he believes mental suggestion is more effective when a person’s brain waves are in an alpha state, relaxed but focused. This relaxed/focused paradox is central to Hershberger’s training. 

“Paradox works really well because it disarms the mind. If your mind is too far into the game then you won’t play well,” said Hershberger. “Its funny we’re doing mind training, but we’re almost training the mind to let go. In martial arts there’s a saying that if you can out relax your opponent you’ll win, with sports teams it’s the same thing.”

Hershberger often uses the phrase “lighten up and fly straight” for women’s basketball this season, which translates to execute the game plan but have fun.

“I find it really helpful,” said captain Anna Prohl ’14. “You basically relax yourself prior to playing and visualize things you want to work at, seeing yourself out on the court doing things that you want to do during the game.”

While most of the time the sessions are quiet and relaxing for the athletes involved, Hershberger also said he feels team bonding is an important part of the work he does with teams. One of his more trusting and comical exercises is  called “ha-ha.” 

“This was an exercise to let us distress,” Prohl said. “When you’re losing games it can be really stressful and can make you really unhappy. He had us put our heads on everyone else’s stomachs and so when you laugh everyone’s stomach moves and it makes other people laugh.”

Adrienne Shibles, the head coach of women’s basketball, said that her team had attended a session with Hershberger prior to the teams’ wins at Colby and Eastern Connecticut last week. 

“Bernie really did a lot with them. I’m not there so I don’t know what he says to them, but whatever he said really worked,” said Shibles. 

Hershberger said his initial motivation for conducting visualization training for athletic teams at the College was to meet athletes, a group he claims often utilizes counseling less than other students. He cited the independent nature of athletes, their “push through it” mentality, and their desire to maintain a strong outward image as reasons for their disuse of counseling.   

Sports psychology is a growing field, and professional athletes such as Olympians Lolo Jones and Kerri Walsh turn to sports psychologists to increase their performance. 

“It’s definitely a Division-I trend,” Hershberger added, commenting on the developing trends at the collegiate level. “I notice that there are some colleges where the counseling centers are looking to hire people who are sports psychologists or people who enjoy doing that and can send some support to the athletic department.”  

Hershberger said he does not believe his training is difficult.

“Everybody can do this,” he said. “My 17-year-old daughter does visualizations to parody me, and they’re pretty good.” 

Shibles conducts visualization sessions two hours before her team plays.

“I don’t know if everyone buys into it, but I think over the course of their four years they start to a little more and for those that do [buy into it], it helps them a lot,” said Shibles. 

 “I’m interested in people being able to do the best that they can, whether they’re on the basketball court or if they want to feel more confident speaking in class,” said Hershberger.
​“I think there are a lot of situations where we don’t get to bring out our true potential because there might be a level of anxiety or lack of confidence that holds us back.”