Since 1994, a constraints-led framework, predicated on an ecological dynamics theory, incorporating key ideas from ecological psychology, dynamical systems theory, evolutionary biology and the complexity sciences, has informed the way that many sport and coaching scientists seek to understand performance, learning design and the development of expertise and talent in sport. This research programme has contributed to an understanding of performance, learning and talent development through an integration of theory, modelling, empirical data collection and applications in practice. Indeed, it has been argued that the constraints-led framework could provide a Grand Unified Theory to explain how athletes function during sport performance (Glazier, 2015).
Over the past two decades, application of the constraints-led framework to performance, learning and athlete development in sport has prioritised a number of strategical aims. First came the theoretical development of the framework (e.g. Araújo & Davids, 2011b; Davids et al., 1994; Davids et al., 2006; Passos, Araújo, & Davids, 2016; Seifert et al., 2014; Williams et al., 1999). Next, its application in understanding learning design for skill acquisition (e.g. Araújo et al., 2009; Davids et al., 2008; Handford et al., 1997; Savelsbergh et al., 2003; Pinder et al., 2011; Renshaw et al., 2010), and enhancing expertise and developing talent in sport (e.g. Araújo, & Davids, 2011a; Passos, Davids, & Chow, 2016; Renshaw et al., 2012), was prioritised. As with any dynamic theoretical framework for practitioners in sport, these scientific and theoretical tasks are emergent, continuous and overlapping.
An important current feature of the contribution of the constraints-led framework for understanding skill, expertise and talent development, is a focus on enhancing the quality of practice in developmental and elite sport (Chow et al., 2016). This process emphasises the important contribution of coaches and teachers in applying constraints-led methodologies in their practical work. An important challenge is to tap into evidence from the experiential knowledge of experienced practitioners and athletes involved with elite and developmental sport performance programmes (e.g. Burnie et al., 2018; Greenwood et al., 2012; Greenwood et al., 2014; Phillips et al., 2010). A constraints-led framework is founded on a rich integration between theory, science and knowledge from high-quality, applied practice in sport. Enhancing and advancing constraints-led pedagogy is, therefore, a symbiotic process where academics and researchers and practitioners can co-create new knowledge and understanding.
The limited amount of research undertaken in this current phase has revealed excellence in innovative and creative sport practice and training programmes around the world. Constraints-Led coaching is enjoying significant attention from the sporting world and is beginning to impact athlete development and practice at the elite level across sports including golf, swimming, cricket, figure skating, cycling, Paralympic sport and team sports like rugby union and association football. However, there are currently no sport-specific coaching/sport pedagogy/sport scientist books that have adopted a constraints-led methodology. This series of books seeks to fill this void by giving a voice to those expert practitioners who are willing to share their evidence-based practice in order to improve the quality of practical and applied work in sport from recreational, through developmental, to elite performance levels. An additional goal is to support the development of nonlinear pedagogy through the provision of practical exemplars that will enable readers to understand how the key principles of ecological dynamics (i.e. the theory) underpin current practice in a variety of sports. For readers new to the area, a clarification of the relationships between ecological dynamics, nonlinear pedagogy (NLP) and the constraints-led approach (CLA) might be of some value at this point. Ecological dynamics describes the theory that supports the NLP framework. Nonlinear pedagogy refers to the pedagogical principles that underpin the constraint-led approach, which is the methodology of manipulating constraints during practice task designs. Specifically, the books in the series can provide practitioners, working at different levels in sport, from recreational through developmental to elite performance programmes across the world, with dedicated materials on the application of a constraints-led methodology in sport. The books will be of interest to sport scientists, coaches, teachers, trainers, performance analysts, rehabilitation therapists and academics (staff and students in sport science, physical education, coaching science, performance analysis and sports engineering).
An overview of the book series
The book series will consist of an initial foundation text followed by a series of sport-specific books. The foundation text will present key ideas from the theoretical background of ecological dynamics and a 4-Principle Model for implementing a constraints-led methodology in a principled framework to support the sport-specific texts that will follow in the series. The foundation text will ensure that readers are brought up to date with a current integration of theory, science and practice in ecological dynamics, and discuss principles of practice application using examples from several sports in a general presentation framework. The book is targeted at practitioners and academics, generally, to provide them with a sound fundamental understanding of the importance of founding learning design on sound theoretical principles. The sport-specific books in the series will have a distinct emphasis on practice and training design, making them an accessible and practical resource intended to inspire critical reflection, continuous theoretical consideration and methodological innovation by practitioners.
Subsequent books in the series will focus on specific sports and aim to provide up-to-date content by selected, leading practitioners (working at elite and developmental levels in different sports) who currently use different aspects of a constraints-led methodology in their work. A key aim will be to illustrate how practice and training design is used in their methodology. Authors will use an evidence-based approach, highlighting practical examples, personal experiences, anecdotes, statistical data and qualitative information to exemplify sound practice in a specific sport. Case studies will be to the fore to elucidate the way that the expert practitioners are applying the ideas of ecological dynamics in their work. Each sport-specific book in the series will start with a series of chapters discussing the practice of the author, illustrating examples from his/her work for readers. Each book will conclude with an explanatory chapter by the specific practitioner(s), co-authored with the series editors (Ian Renshaw, Keith Davids, Danny Newcombe and Will Roberts) to explain how the theoretical principles of the constraints-led methodology have been applied in the context of the specific sport highlighted in the text. The books will include: (i) under-graduate content on motor learning, skill acquisition and expertise and talent development in sport, (ii) similar post-graduate content for dissertations, and (iii), specialist knowledge on different types of constraints-led pedagogical activities for coaches, teachers, sport science support staff and performance analysts.
Each book will provide academics and students of sport science, coaching science, physical education and performance analysis courses with reference material that can direct studies to support learning and education. Throughout the book series it will be emphasised that readers should not seek to merely copy the task designs but use them as inspiration for innovative and creative approaches to their own practice, based on sound understanding of theoretical principles from ecological dynamics and applying them using the Environment Design Principles.
The structure of the foundation text
This foundation book seeks to provide a sound understanding of the importance of basing practice and training design on the application of a set of powerful theoretical principles. The primary focus is to provide practitioners with a framework to apply the key theoretical ideas of ecological dynamics and nonlinear pedagogy to their practice. To that end, we will introduce the Environment Design Principles (EDP). The book is split into three parts: (i) Theory; (ii) Bridging the gap; and (iii) Practice from theory. Chapters 2 to 4 provide a basic introduction to the theoretical framework of ecological dynamics, which supports a constraints-led methodology. The introductory material is essential for readers unfamiliar with the constraints-led approach and will provide a principled learning design for coaches, specifically focusing on individual-environment mutuality, athletes and sports teams as complex dynamic systems, the nature of interacting constraints and self-organisation tendencies and affordances. Chapters 5 and 6 are the bridging chapters in which we exemplify the tools for practitioners to use to put a CLA into their own practice. The EDP includes a 4-Principle Model, environment and constraints builder tool and a session planner. The framework invites practitioners to systematically design in affordances, constraints, variability and task representativeness to underpin the implementation of a constraints-led methodology. The final part (Chapters 7 to 9) will provide a flavour of the type of content that will be covered in greater depth in the sport specific books in the series. The goal will be to give coaches a ‘taste’ of what is to come. Chapter 10 (Conclusion) summarises for readers how the main concepts in a constraints-led approach can underpin the quality of practical applications in a variety of sports, encouraging reflection and consideration within the context of each reader’s current experience and understanding.
Constraint-led coaching: a new way of thinking
The constraints-led approach (CLA) that originated in the work of Newell (1986) is an integrative model that can also provide applied sport scientists (i.e. in psychological support, strength and conditioning and training), performance analysis with an understanding of how human beings develop or organise movement solutions. While a CLA may have been originally founded on a more dynamical systems model of human movement, recent work has integrated the ideas of ecological psychology and in particular the work of Gibson (1979/1986) and Brunswik (1956). In order to successfully employ a CLA, an understanding of ecological dynamics is essential as these underpinning concepts manifest themselves as guiding principles for the design of CLA practice environments. Applying ideas such as self-organisation under constraints, perception–action coupling and affordances means that practice differs in many ways to traditional methods of teaching and coaching human movement. The CLA is an approach to teaching and coaching based on the fundamental concept of the mutuality of the performer and environment (Gibson, 1979/1986). Through the interaction of the three core categories of constraints – task, environment and individual – a learner will self-organise in attempts to generate effective movement solutions (Renshaw et al., 2010). Thus, the specific goal-focussed behaviours emerge from the co-adaptive interactions to prevailing constraints at a point in time. Consequently, skill acquisition is seen as the development of a functional relationship between the performer and their environment (Araújo & Davids, 2011a; Zelaznik, 2014). The specific focus of practitioners is, therefore, on designing learning activities that allow individuals or groups of individuals (i.e. functioning in teams) to self-organise and co-adapt to changing constraints. Our goal in all the books in this series, and specifically in this foundation book, is to support academics and particularly practitioners who are interested in applying these theories to their practice by adopting a CLA. To that end, we will provide many ‘exemplars’ from sport and pedagogy settings to help explain the sometimes dense and confronting language that can inhabit the ecological dynamics landscape. In this way, reading a book in the CLA series authored by a coach from a different sport can still help practitioners to learn and reflect on their own work in the sport of their choice.
General note
Since ecological dynamics, and the concomitant constraints-led methodology is dynamic and continuously developing, it is envisaged that principles of practice will develop at a similar rate encouraging (sometimes subtle) methodological innovations that can be shared. We will seek to integrate nuanced developments into texts, ensuring the maintenance and coherence of a constraints-led methodology, consistent with relevant theoretical principles, empirical research and experiential knowledge.