Introduction to the Constraints-Led Approach

Application in Football

Ben Bell

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780323850278
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Physiology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Introduction to the Constraints-Led Approach: Application in Football is a coaching resource football coaches can use to understand key theoretical components of the constraints-led approach. Sections discuss ecological dynamics, perception-action, degrees of freedom and complexity theory. Examples are provided within theoretical chapters to assist readers in their practical application. Over 30 designed practices using the constraints-led approach show readers how the theory translates into practice. These are ordered by the aim of the practice, from in possession, to defensive transition, to out of possession and attacking transition.

Currently, there are no books on the market covering the constraints-led approach specific to football. The aim is to make this book accessible to football coaches without the necessity to focus solely on academic theory.

• Provides an overview on the constraints-led approach that will help users gain a basic understanding of the theory
• Covers fundamental knowledge for coaches who want to improve their practice
• Includes over 30 practice session plans with key theoretical concepts

Chapter 1: The theoretical foundation of the constraints-led approach

Abstract

This book is a coaching resource combining academic theory with practice designs demonstrating how a constraints-led approach can be implemented in football/soccer. This book is a professional reference for practitioners including coaches, teachers, and physical educators. This book provides an introduction into the key theoretical frameworks that underpin the constraints-led approach, a recognized theory in motor learning and now an innovative approach to sport coaching. It outlines the model displaying how various systems and subsystems are involved in producing movement solutions. A conceptual model for movement solutions is important to understand for coaches as it helps inform the design of learning environments, ensuring learners have a positive experience while acquiring and adapting movement solutions. Football coaches will appreciate the 40 practice designs within the book showing how the constraints-led approach can be implemented in a practice environment. Practices are designed for all age groups and ability and are easily adaptable making them applicable to any environment. The practice designs have an applied focus that integrates specific features of the constraints-led approach making a clear connection between the theory chapters and the practice designs. By reading this book, readers will develop an understanding of the origins of constraints-led approach and how it is applicable to a contemporary coaching climate. By learning about the theoretical framework and the application of the constraints-led approach, readers will develop an insight into how nonlinear practice environments can help improve performers to be more efficient and effective at finding movement solutions.

Keywords

Adaptation; Coaching; Constraints-led; Dynamics; Ecological; Football; Learning; Nonlinear; Perception–action; Skill acquisition

The constraints-led approach (CLA) is a framework within which behavior can be viewed, explained, and changed. The underpinning of the CLA is ecological dynamics introduced in Gibson’s book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979) which says that we, as organisms, are capable of problem-solving in our surroundings. The CLA in practice is the manipulation of constraints within the environment inviting learners to self-organize (Newell, 1986). It is important for football and sport generally, as it views the relationship between the athlete and the environment as critical for understanding performance and learning, rather than emphasizing personal qualities and ability.

Drawing upon research from ecological psychology, dynamic systems theory, movements structures, and chaos theory, the CLA framework has been used to understand how children and adults acquire and adapt movement skills (Davids et al., 2008; Davids, 2011). The coaching framework that was discovered following the development of understanding of ecological dynamics helps us understand learning.

Gibson (1979) discussed ecological psychology, and how the way an organism perceives an environment is the key to how the organism acts within it. Within this book, affordances are defined as opportunities for action. Affordances are available to organisms within the environment. For example, if we (as humans) saw a mouse, the reaction would be very different to the reaction of a cat, who could try to chase it and play with it and probably kill it. In this example, the mouse is the affordance as it is inviting an action from an organism in the environment. This shows how different perceptions lead to different actions as the way we perceive a mouse would be different to the way a cat does.

Ecological dynamics is made up of Ecological psychology and dynamical systems, addressing how nonlinear systems interact, as organisms ourselves we are all nonlinear systems. Combine ecological psychology and dynamical systems, and you have ecological dynamics, which underpins the CLA. Ecological dynamics tells us that organisms are nonlinear. Nonlinear systems do not develop in a step-by-step process with consistent gradual change; they instead stop, jump, and even regress in ways which can be difficult to predict.

The key thing related to practice is that the way we behave is dependent on what we perceive in our environment. The coach is viewed as an environment architect as they can control some but not all of what the learners perceive in the environment.

There will always be factors such as the playing conditions which the coach has no control over.

Building on this, what the learner/performer perceives can be manipulated by constraints.

Constraints on perception are divided into three: organism referring to the individual; task referring to the rules, size of the field, duration, number of goals, and number of players; and environment referring to the weather conditions and playing surface (Newell, 1986). The constraints that can be imposed on the organism, task, and environment are discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, Practice design overview, on pages 23–27.

Aspects of these can be manipulated to create emergent behaviors implicitly where organisms produce actions as a response to what they perceive in their environment. Out of the three, this book mainly focuses on manipulating the task and environment.

The CLA says that learning is nonlinear and following the introduction of innovative pedagogies, contemporary coaching is becoming more nonlinear (Chow et al., 2016). This challenges traditional coaching methods that argue that learning is a linear process which is why there has been resistance to innovative approaches to coaching (Butler, 2005). A CLA is important as it is a framework that can be applied to many sports (Magius et al., 2015; Renshaw et al., 2015). Despite the fact it could develop approaches to learning and skill acquisition, the lack of empirical research into the practical application along with the complex nature of ecological dynamics and perception–action could act as a barrier to it being successfully implemented on a large scale (Martindale & Nash, 2013; Renshaw et al., 2015).

Crucial elements of the practical application of the CLA are these four principles.

(Renshaw et al., 2019).

• 1. Representative design
• 2. Affordances
• 3. Intentionality
• 4. Repetition without repetition

Representative design refers to how realistic a practice is ensuring what the learners are perceiving in the practice environment reflects what they could experience in the performance environment. Affordances refers to what is in the environment for learners to react to in accordance with the practice intention. Intentionality is the aim of the practice acting as an overarching constraint of behavior. Finally, repetition without repetition refers to the amount and quality of different possible solutions to problems created in the environment.

These principles allow the coach to understand the value of a practice and can be seen as dials that can be adjusted. On a speaker, there are dials that control bass, treble, volume, echo, and tone. In coaching, these four principles can be adjusted like dials on a speaker. For example, a coach could dial up the affordances in an environment while dialing down the representative design. It is a way to help inform practices and understand why behaviors emerge within them.

Chapter 2: Ecological dynamics

Abstract

This book is a coaching resource combining academic theory with practice designs demonstrating how a constraints-led approach can be implemented in football/soccer. This book is a professional reference for practitioners including coaches, teachers, and physical educators. This book provides an introduction into the key theoretical frameworks that underpin the constraints-led approach, a recognized theory in motor learning and now an innovative approach to sport coaching. It outlines the model displaying how various systems and subsystems are involved in producing movement solutions. A conceptual model for movement solutions is important to understand for coaches as it helps inform the design of learning environments, ensuring learners have a positive experience while acquiring and adapting movement solutions. Football coaches will appreciate the 40 practice designs within the book showing how the constraints-led approach can be implemented in a practice environment. Practices are designed for all age groups and ability and are easily adaptable making them applicable to any environment. The practice designs have an applied focus that integrates specific features of the constraints-led approach making a clear connection between the theory chapters and the practice designs. By reading this book, readers will develop an understanding of the origins of constraints-led approach and how it is applicable to a contemporary coaching climate. By learning about the theoretical framework and the application of the constraints-led approach, readers will develop an insight into how nonlinear practice environments can help improve performers to be more efficient and effective at finding movement solutions.

Keywords

Adaptation; Coaching; Constraints-led; Dynamics; Ecological; Football; Learning; Nonlinear; Perception–action; Skill acquisition

The aim of this chapter is to explain ecological dynamics and how it underpins the constraints-led approach (CLA). Ecology refers to environment, and dynamics is a large and diverse set of methods and concepts. Ecological dynamics suggests that humans are self-organizing dynamical systems, and our behaviors are reactions to the environment. Self-organizing refers to our ability to problem-solve. This is based on ecological psychology being the study of information transactions involving a living system and their environment (Davids et al., 2008).

Ecological dynamics can be applied to football as it considers performers and teams as adaptive systems that are a complex network of integrated subcomponents that interact, such as each performer in a team (Renshaw et al., 2019). An ecological approach puts stress on the individual and the environment and uses affordances as opportunities for action (Araujo et al., 2006, 2010). This means that our behavior is a result of how we react to things in our environment. Dynamical systems theory is an alternative paradigm to traditional coaching methods and suggests that movement control is not centrally stored (Barris et al., 2013), signifying its link to self-organization, coordinative structures, and perception–action coupling, which is discussed in more depth in the next chapter.

Gibson (1979) tells us that performers make up their own environment. Without the performers, the environment is not the same, showing that the organism and environment are mutually dependent on one another. However, the environment can become complex because there is a crossover where environments of performers merge. This can occur when a performer can be perceiving at the same time as affording opportunities for other performers to act. Furthermore, Gibson (1979) stated that performers are the most complex objects of perception in the environment meaning we can react to what happens in the environment.

As mentioned, ecological dynamics suggests we learn by self-organizing as we are dynamic systems capable of finding our own movement solutions. The CLA characterizes performers as nonlinear dynamical movement systems, and this provides a basis for nonlinear pedagogy (Chow et al., 2006; Davids et al., 2008). The CLA accepts people find their own movement solutions, and if the outcome...