Soccer is a sport filled with complicated movement patterns. Contorting your body in all different ways is the norm for these athletes. But what happens if that contorted body wasn’t in a good enough position to move that way? What if I told you the majority of our athletes aren’t in an optimal position to play soccer? What if I told you it was because of your liver? The human body is going to the right. The way we are set up, naturally pulls us to the right. On a basic level

Within the context of soccer, each position on the field requires a specific set of skills, both physically and psychologically. When analyzing certain situations within the flow of a game, the inverted-U theory is applicable. The inverted-U theory addresses the relationship between arousal and performance. The theory states that an athlete achieves optimal performance at an intermediate level of arousal while both low and high levels of arousal will lead to poor performance

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Barcelona, Spain. Here at the MBP School of Coaches, we just completed our 8th week of the Master in High Performance Soccer, which means we are officially half way towards becoming a ‘Master’ in the MBP Methodology. During the 8th week we completed the line fundamentals (defensive, midfielder, and forward lines). Without any further ado, let’s get right into it. As I alluded to in the previous post, the line fundamentals are synchronized a

“Biomechanics is the science which applies the principles of mechanics to the unique study of how human beings move and to the athletes how they should move to achieve optimum performance” (Peter Stothart, 1980-1981). As athletes and soccer players in particular, continue to progress along the developmental continuum, more emphasis is placed on the importance of sound biomechanics in all aspects of the sport such as speed, power, accuracy, force, and balance. “As the athlete’

“Under pressure you can perform fifteen percent better or worse.” – Scott Hamilton According to Williams (2010), “anxiety is negative in direction in that it is an emotional state or reaction characterized by unpleasant feelings of intensity, preoccupation, disturbance, or apprehension” (p. 227). When an athlete feels anxious, their body responds physiologically by “a racing heart beat, a dry mouth, butterflies in your stomach, cold and clammy hands, trembling muscles, or an

Hello everyone and welcome back to Barcelona, Spain! As you can see, my new website is now live and I am excited to be working in the new platform! I am excited to share my experiences in Week 7 as we completed the IFPs and moved onto the next soccer structure, the constellations. To start the week, Dr. Rude taught us the tactical fundamentals for the strikers. After Dr. Rude completed the lesson, it became clear as to why professional clubs break the bank for strikers. Let’s

Hello again, and welcome back to Barcelona, Spain! In this edition, I will discuss the #10 position in addition to sharing our second sport psychology session with Xavi Garcia. Let’s get started. In order to best describe the #10 position (offensive midfielder), I want to start with this video. When we began the lesson on the #10, Dr. Rude explained to us that depending on the coach’s system of play, there could be 1, 2, or 3 #10s. Normally, the #10(s) look to exploit the spa