Your Mind: Sharpening Your Game-Day Mindset
June 29, 2007
I found this pretty interesting and its certainly worth looking into. It appears that the natural body chemical dopamine — a neurotransmitter in the brain — has many functions including important roles in behavior and cognition, motor activity, motivation, mental clarity, alertness and concentration. It’s also interesting to note that exercise promotes the development of dopamine.
So, I got to thinking - how is this chemical depleted? How can it effect physical performance and is it safe for the body to produce dopamine at higher levels for increased mental focus and performance?
Can increased dopamine levels really help soccer players?
According to the wikipedia community and proven scientific fact, extremely high levels of dopamine can cause psychosis and can be done so by using drugs like cocaine. Warning: stay away from that stuff "cocaine" as I think Homer (see brain x-ray above) had a little too much in the 70’s!
Dopamine production can be managed to a certain extent and you can learn more about how here. Increased dopamine can certainly effect physical performance from the research that I have done but one must manage this carefully and naturally.
In moderate levels, by using natural herbs to slighty increase dopamine production along with regular exercise, which soccer players should be getting plenty of (I hope), you may be able to elevate or increase mental focus and athletic agility. I’ve provided a list of recommended supplements and foods to consider.
Supplements:
- L-Phenylalanine
- Vitamin B-50, B-6
Useful sources of building blocks for dopamine:
- Apples
- Beets
- Blue-green algae
- Celery
- Chicken
- Cucumber
- Fish
- Green leafy vegetables
- Honey
- Cheese
- Sweet peppers
- Tofu
- Watermelon
Some other interesting reading on natural supplements and dopamine can be found at Dr. Ray Sahelin’s website and at the Science Daily. I hope this information was useful and interesting…let me know.
– Jason
Your Body: The Bean Workout
June 27, 2007
As a player I was big on abdominal training. If I was a coaching today I’d be even more outspoken to my players about the importance of having a strong abdominal region. After all, this group of muscles has a major effect on your coordination and is especially important for soccer players balance and agility.
There are so many exercises to train the abdominal region and so many ways to train the region incorrectly. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of Tami Lee Webb - she’ll kick your butt with her videos. Then there is this new product out that my wife just had to have and it was backordered for weeks.
When she finally got it I remember her going bizerk, "MY BEAN IS HERE, FINALLY"! Yep, you can probably imagine my look of perplexition. Your bean is here, huh - I asked. Julie proceeded to open and talk me thru her discovery and then set-up (blew up) The Bean. Brandi Chastain, former US Women’s National Team Star, has even endorsed the product and we know she’s got some rock hard abs.
So, we’ve been using it and I have to say it’s a pretty awesome ab workout. It comes with a few sets of workouts and all can be done in between commercials, which i like to do. For the more serious workout I’ve got preplanned exercises and that’s cool.
For coaches out there this could be a great station if you do fitness days with your squad. For players that want an inexpensive and convenient way to really get a great isometric ab workout - you can’t go wrong with The Bean. Check it out!
Your Game: Breaking Down the Defense with Possesion & Ball Movement
June 25, 2007
While possession allows a team to gather itself and build the attack, it’s ball movement that ultimately breaks down the defense and creates the scoring opportunities.
Experienced trainers point out possession without movement off the ball can “invite pressure,” meaning the defense gains confidence when they see the offense become stagnant with fewer options. It’s why players who can possess or one-touch and move to space are so valuable at any level.
Current Syracuse University Men’s Soccer Coach Dean Foti makes some excellent points in Attacking Soccer (by Joseph A. Luxbacher; Human Kinetics; ISBN 0-7360-0123-9) that include:
“The most important benefit of possession soccer is that the team with more possession will have the opportunity to create more scoring chances. Possession play to find numerical advantages throughout the field, to penetrate and unbalance an opponent’s defense, is what will break down defenses, create scoring opportunity and produce goals.
Several basic building blocks are prerequisites for effective possession soccer. First, players must be able to make correct decisions quickly during play. Second, individual team members must have a common understanding about when to keep possession of the ball and when to go forward and penetrate. Last, when concise decision making and a clear understanding of the possession vs. penetration concept are in place, a team can focus on increasing the speed of play, on moving the ball quickly within the team to unbalance the opponent’s defense.
Slow play allows the defense time to react comfortably to every movement of the ball. Each time a player in possession of the ball pauses to decide what to do next the defense has time to adjust.
If a team can increase speed of play by acting quickly on decisions and thus moving the ball rapidly from player to player, the defense has less time to react and keep up. By not allowing the defense time to provide adequate pressure, cover and balance, opportunities to penetrate will arise.”
For players and coaches, if you’re looking for interesting perspectives and tips about possession soccer and speed of play, check out these links on possesion and speed of play.
– Steve Arters
Check out the forum discussion on this post at zigazogalabs.com or post your comment here.
Your Game, Your Body, Your Mind Forums
June 25, 2007
If you’re new to ZZ or have followed us over to the lab, you may or may not know of our focus to provide valuable content and conversation around three primary areas we feel make up the Total Soccer Player. We call these pillars of strength Your Game, Your Body and Your Mind.
Behind the scenes we are developing strategic partnerships with Professional Coaches & Experts around the world who can provide valuable content that will help Players & Coaches to "Get Stuck In!" Ok, sorry, its another Ziga-Zoga thing…read on below
So, we’re building up a library of content that we can’t wait to share. Until then we have implemented Your Game, Your Body and Your Mind Forums on the lab site. We’d like to host a few conversations weekly or monthly and see how it goes but, we are also looking for folks who might be interested to facilitate some conversations. If you’re interested give me a shout 210.259.3242 or shoot me an email jcronkhite at zigazoga dot com.
Oh yeah…more about the forums - my thought is that we could start by posting an article on a particular subject matter and if you want to open up dialogue and share your thoughts go for it. You should also feel free to post your own discussion topic, just make sure it falls into the right category.
I look forward to it.
Congrats Boyz!!!!
June 24, 2007
Congrats Boyz, you made us proud! Four Gold Cups is nice and Bobby Boy should be feeling good as well. It’s nice to see that we are consistently beating Mexico.
It was also nice to see that we have many up and coming players that are hungry to prove themselves and that Bobby is giving ‘em a chance. Today was a good win!
Going forward, I still think we a have much to improve on as a squad. No need to get into things now as I think the victory should be celebrated and taken as a positive step for our rebuilding efforts.
Good Job Team USA! Enjoy and get focused on Copa America.
Bolton Looking For US Talent
June 21, 2007
If I would have known earlier I would have posted this but, I just found out on Peter Langens’ site that they are hosting Bolton’s Elite Recruiting camps. The camps are open to boys and girls from 8-18 and the next camp is at Bowling Green State University.
The next camp is coming up next week June 24-29. If you know of a talented player that should attend this camp and can get there on such short notice here is link for more information (toward the middle of the page).
So what is this Ziga-Zoga?
June 19, 2007
Many of you that may have recently joined as members may be asking this - what is this Ziga-Zoga? And, many of those out in the blogosphere may have read this blog on occasion and wondered about who we are? Well, hopefully this post may address some of those questions.
Ziga-Zoga is soccer-specific community based training and entertainment network. There are currently four of us bootstrapping this start-up into fully supporting our passion with this game. The four of us are Chris Campasano, Ed Sakiewicz, Steve Arters and myself (Jason Cronkhite).
A few years back we were working on a website project for our soccer complex in Schertz, TX, which is just outside San Antonio and as a non-profit facilities management group we were looking for some very creative ways to better serve the users of the facility. Well, during this process we came up with some very cool ideas and concepts to serve our local community. The interesting thing to us though was the need that we saw not just locally but nationwide to have an online web portal that was truly there to serve the true interest of the soccer community.
Yes, Joga.com came along and its cool but, we think it lacks a lot of what we wish to provide the community. And, the best part to our approach is that we are mission-centric not brand-centric. We are the little guys that truely care about how we can effect change for the greater good of the soccer community and just hope you’ll come join us as we experiment and build this network together.
We’d like you to learn a bit more about what we have planned by visiting the Ziga-Zoga Story page and our testing site at www.zigazogalabs.com . I also put a short video together that you can watch below (be patient with the stream it may jump a bit to begin with). I could use some brushing up on the speaking but hey, its the real me, it was late and I promise to get better 
Looking at Collaborative Apps
June 16, 2007
Hey guys, its been a few days since I posted and just wanted to provide you and update. One of the things we are trying to accomplish at Ziga-Zoga is to provide an opportunity for people to connect and collaborate in soccer.
Chris
and I have been reviewing quite a few applications that we all might be
able to use to enable cross-country or cross-continent collaboration (chime in if you have any insight on a few things I am about to cover).
So you know,
Ziga-Zoga has the capability to import pretty much any widget based
application and we’ve been reviewing a few IM Chat apps. We have looked at are Meebo, Gibbly
Chat, GeeSee and UserPlane. Gibbly Chat seemed to install pretty easy
and was user friendly. Meebo was pretty cool too but, to me it took up too
much space on the page and I wanted to see more interactive capabilities. Then, I reviewed GeeSee a bit but did not really dig into as much after I saw
UserPlane. UserPlane allows for IM and Video Chat and thought this might be the
kind of chat application we might benefit from the most and its FREE.
Still, we are going to look at other things like Skype but would like to hear your thoughts.
If you’d like to install UserPlane on your page here’s the code (just copy and paste in your text or comment box):
<script language="javascript" src="http://www.userplane.com/chatlite/medallion/chatlite.cfm?
app_str=ch&DomainID=1910c1bcdb3e55626b1ccd84046e6f63"></script><noscript>You must have JavaScript enabled to use <a href="http://www.userplane.com" title="Userplane" target="_blank">Userplane Chat</a>. <a href="http://www.userplane.com/chatlite/directory/detail.cfm?app_str=ch&guid=AF360423%2D9A27%2D4B29%2DBFAA%2DBD1AF4A68813" title="Userplane">Click to view Ziga%2DZoga’s Chat Detail</a>. <a href="http://www.userplane.com/webchat" title="Webchat" target="_blank">Userplane Webchat</a>™</noscript>
U.S. v. Guatemala - Game 1 Gold Cup
June 7, 2007
After a convincing victory versus China on Saturday, our U.S. Boys were back to their old tricks, with Donovan leading the way to mediocrity. There are several questions after this game (actually there are many, but I have a few):
1) Bradley fielded a lineup that clicked on Saturday, with a few surprises, such as Ante Razov, but then he changed it up again which included Donovan and Twellman. Landon was again up to his old tricks, playing mediocre soccer, not attacking, and playing tentative. When will the powers-that-be at US Soccer realize that Donovan is not the superstar that everyone there thinks he is. Donovan just cannot conduct the flow of the game and be the field general, he just cannot do it. I would love to see a string of games from Donovan that make me take notice. Trust me - I would love to be a fan, but just cannot be.
2) When will the US team start finishing opportunities in front of the net. US had at least 3 opportunities to score - right in front of the net - with no result. In order for the US to start competing on an international stage, they have to convert point blank and even open net attempts.
3) The game was rather disjointed and didnt have rhythm for the US. When will Bradley pick the RIGHT team (start picking players on ability and not politics, this is why I still dont think Bradley is the right person for the job, but thats another topic). When you have great players from overseas like DeMerit and Simek on the bench, you have to use them. Would Bradley have used DeMerit if Gooch didnt get the 2 Yellows? Probably not. Bradley needs to find they guys that click and keep playing them - look at the UEFA Euro 2008 matches, you see the international coaches changing guys around for friendlies, but in the qualifier matches its mostly the same group of guys. The flow and rhythm of playing together is very important.
The US is lucky that they were playing Guatemala tonight, but they have to remember that they will face a pesky Trinidad and Tobago team (that could pull of an upset against the US) and Mexico (who is worlds better than Guatemala) and they need to get it going fast in order to win this Gold Cup and move into Copa America, against the South American giants like Argentina and Brazil.
Lets see the next game how it all pans out!
How can we help you “Get Stuck In!”?
June 6, 2007
If you’re not familiar with the phrase, it basically means dig in, get pumped up, get in the zone, get after it, etc. At ZZ, its our mantra and company philosophy - it’s what we want to help each of our members accomplish in their own right.
One of the ways we try to help is by providing subject matter on our blog and will soon in other mediums such as forums, group discussions and a wiki that is focused in a few areas we call: Your Game, Your Body and Your Mind. These subject matter areas are key focal areas that could help any player or coach. For the fan, general news or conversations check out ZZ Off the Pitch. You can read more about these subject areas in the upper left hand column of the blog.
With that said, we are looking for specific subject matter that can help you improve Your Game, Your Body and Your MInd. So, if you have something specific your interested in an would like us to cover for you please leave any suggestions here by simply commenting below or feel free to email me directly.
Cheers,
Jason
