Constraints-Led Approach

Frank Hutton

Sport Pedagogy

18 February 2013

Constraints-Led Approach

Constraints-led approach, a useful framework for coaches to integrate the vast amounts of sport science information into training and competition programs. In other words, Constraints are all the factors that influence learning and performance at any moment in time. Coaching is often described as an ‘art’, but effective coaching requires the coach to design a program that is based on a sound scientific knowledge. Without this knowledge, programs are likely to be at best ineffective and at worst dangerous. This paper will mainly concentrate on the paradoxical relationship between unpredictability and the certainty of players’ actions in team ball sports. The beginning of this paper starts with a critical overview of traditional approaches to studying decision making in sport. Then we are describing how to manipulate task constraints to improve decision-making performance.

One of the biggest question coaches ask is, how can we reduce the uncertainty unavoidably faced by players in all competitive, performance sports? Most training methods used by coaches prepare kids for certainty. Why is this, when most performance sports are games of uncertainty? Players never know with 100% certainty what their opponents are going to do at every moment of the game. Even the previous knowledge that players may acquire about their opponents is never enough to solve the problems that emerge during stages of games like Rugby Union. Traditional methods to coach decision-making and implementation of skills in team games like Rugby Union are deterministic, in the sense that they attempt to leave little to chance and equate performance uncertainty with random variations in play. Consequently, coaching methods are adopted which seek to decrease the variability of actions in players and the uncertainty of their decision-making processes. Competitive team games are not stable contexts in which information is...