A research team from Ohio University team recruited 44 people for a study designed to see if mental imagery could help prevent muscle loss in people who whose wrists were immobilized.

 

Twenty-nine subjects wore a rigid cast that extended from just below the elbow past the fingers, effectively immobilizing the hand and wrist. Fifteen subjects who did not wear casts served as the control group.

 

Of the group with wrist-hand immobilization, half were asked to regularly perform an imagery exercise, imagining they were intensely contracting their wrist for five seconds and then resting for five seconds. This was repeated four times in a row followed by a one-minute break for a total of 13 rounds per session and five sessions per week. The second group performed no imagery exercises.

 

At the end of the four-week experiment, both groups who wore casts had lost strength in their immobilized limbs when compared to the control group. But the group that performed mental imagery exercises lost 50 percent less strength than the non-imaginative group. They also rebounded more quickly as well.