By Praise Thorsen:
How Skills Are Learned Matters
As coaches, it is crucial to teach skills effectively. Designing practice is a skill in itself. Baseball development has remained consistent for decades. With time, understanding of how throwing works and what creates a high-velocity strike thrower has deepened. Although the knowledge within the baseball community has grown tremendously, communication and application of this knowledge are still lacking for many. The key is in how it is communicated and applied by coaches. Most people understand the mechanics of throwing, but the real question is how to teach the thrower the movements of a more efficient throw.
Your typical pitching coach or instructor might coach like this: either sit on the bucket when you throw a pen and yell out verbal cues, or stand behind you when you throw your pen and give verbal cues. Some cues that might bring back bad memories include “get your arm up,” “use your legs,” “you’re flying open,” or “get more extension.” These verbal cues often provide no real feedback for the athlete, leaving them even more confused. If the throw doesn’t improve after the cue, the typical coach might blame the player. As coaches, we need to create a learning environment that provides solutions to each athlete's problems.
The Constraint-Led Approach
The constraint-led approach is often misunderstood as throwing athletes into the fire without context and telling them to find their way out. In reality, it involves providing the athlete with guidance to find solutions through the manipulation of constraints. When designing practice, there must be a reason behind the constraints and a problem to destabilize. If you destabilize movements that athletes already have solutions to, there won’t be much progress.
Three constraints interact to create skill: the individual, environment, and task. The coach’s job is to identify the problem the athlete is having and destabilize one or multiple of these constraints to allow the athlete to find a solution. Utilizing all three types of constraints in coaching is key. Viewing coaching through this lens will change your approach to practice design.
Individual Constraints
Individual constraints include factors such as size, physical capacity (strength, mobility, speed, etc.), and mental skills (decision-making, recognizing patterns, confidence, etc.). As a coach, we can influence many of these individual constraints by identifying the athlete’s biggest needs from a physical standpoint. Whether it’s the athlete’s weight, strength, power, or mobility, we need to identify the limiting factor and apply that to the throw. For example, if the athlete is lacking layback in the throw, we need to identify the physical factor causing this and address it.
Research has shown that understanding and addressing individual constraints can significantly improve performance. For instance, Newell (1986) discusses how constraints on coordination development can shape skill acquisition.
Environmental Constraints
Environmental constraints in throwing include varying throwing objects (baseballs, softballs, overload/underload, plyo balls, football, throwing club, etc.), manipulating outside forces (providing sensory information through throwing drills), and limiting degrees of freedom (varying throwing drills). For instance, if an athlete is triple extending off the back leg early in the delivery, we can provide them with a split stance throw to limit the degrees of freedom, then use a drop step throw to manipulate outside forces through a time constraint, guiding the athlete to find the most efficient solution
Task Constraints
Task constraints for throwers involve manipulating the task rather than physical constraints. Without a clear task, the athlete will have no clear solution. Creating externally driven tasks is effective when destabilizing a problem for an athlete. For example, shifting the athlete’s task to external feedback might involve cues like “create more backspin on the ball,” “throw as hard as you can through this target,” or “hit the ground hard with your front foot.” While external driven tasks are preferred, combining them with internal driven tasks can be useful in the right context. For instance, if an athlete struggles to move proximal to distal in the throw and movement created from a distal limb is affecting the throw, a coach can put the athlete in a split stance throw (limiting degrees of freedom), give them a 2lb weight in the glove arm, instruct them to throw the baseball through the target as hard as they can, and provide the internal cue “rotate through the middle of your body.” Internal cues aren’t inherently bad, but they must be paired with the right constraints to be effective.
The principles of the constraint-led approach are well-documented in sports science. For a comprehensive understanding, the book "Motor Learning in Practice: A Constraints-Led Approach" by Renshaw, Davids, and Savelsbergh (2010) provides valuable insights.
The Role of the Coach
A coach should guide an athlete. Often, athletes take videos and seek feedback on each throw, trying to fix it with internal cueing. Unfortunately, this approach is not very effective. It is the coach’s job to educate the athlete on how learning works and why constant feedback and internal cueing are ineffective. The coach should create an environment that destabilizes the athlete’s movement problems, allowing them to self-organize and find solutions within the guardrails set by the coach. When athletes understand how learning occurs, they will buy into a more hands-off approach to coaching through the constraint-led approach.
The Importance of Understanding Learning
Understanding the learning process is crucial for both coaches and athletes. Learning is not a linear process; it involves periods of instability and variability. According to Newell (1986), motor learning is influenced by the interaction of constraints, and coaches must understand these interactions to facilitate effective skill acquisition. By creating practice environments that manipulate individual, environmental, and task constraints, coaches can help athletes develop more robust and adaptable skills.
Applying the Constraint-Led Approach
Applying the constraint-led approach in practice design involves several steps. First, identify the specific skill or movement problem the athlete is facing. Next, determine which constraints (individual, environmental, or task) can be manipulated to address this problem. Then, design practice activities that incorporate these constraints, providing athletes with opportunities to explore and find solutions.
For example, if an athlete is struggling with early hip rotation in their pitching delivery, a coach might use a combination of environmental and task constraints to address this issue. The coach could introduce a heavier ball to increase the sensory feedback (environmental constraint) and set a task that requires the athlete to focus on maintaining hip-shoulder separation during the throw. By manipulating these constraints, the coach can guide the athlete toward a more efficient movement pattern.
As coaches, it is our responsibility to create learning environments that foster skill development and address individual athlete needs. The constraint-led approach offers a framework for designing such environments by considering the interplay of individual, environmental, and task constraints. By understanding and applying this approach, coaches can help athletes develop more efficient and effective throwing mechanics.
Research supports the efficacy of the constraint-led approach in skill acquisition and motor learning. Newell's (1986) work on coordination development and the insights from Renshaw, Davids, and Savelsbergh (2010) highlight the importance of considering constraints in practice design. By integrating these principles into coaching, we can move beyond traditional methods and provide athletes with the tools they need to succeed.
If you’re an athlete struggling with your mechanics, having a coach who can apply the constraint-led approach to your training can provide significant benefits for your development. Embrace the challenge of learning through constraints, and you will likely see improvements in your performance and a deeper understanding of your skills.
For a transferrable approach from your training to the game, email training@connected-performance.com to unlock your raw potential.