What is The Constraints-Led Approach (CLA)?
Alex Sarama explores the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) in basketball, in addition to its underlying theory of ecological dynamics.
44 min
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Alex Sarama explores the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) in basketball, in addition to its underlying theory of ecological dynamics.
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In this episode, Alex Sarama explores the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) in basketball, in addition to its underlying theory of ecological dynamics. He debunks many misconceptions surrounding the CLA within the basketball world, highlighting how the CLA is a wide-ranging framework which not only makes sense of how skills emerge, but also how it can be used as a methodology in any organizational field.
Alex explains the three categories of constraint according to Newell's Constraints Model (1986): individual, task, and environment, discussing how they interact to shape every movement we see on the court. He provides practical examples of how to implement the CLA with players of all levels, from beginners to the NBA and WNBA.
Learn about player development with our FREE activities book. Inside, you'll find 50 activity diagrams for your workouts and team practices:https://transformingbball.com/small-sided-games-book
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This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.
Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective of the game. If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are going to take a deep look at the constraints-led approach, aka the CLA, in basketball.
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So this is the main message at Transforming Basketball. The CLA, it goes way deeper than just being viewed as a coaching methodology that we can use in our practices. And something that I'm hearing a lot in particular is that the CLA is simply old wine in new bottles.
For instance, small-sided games have been done for decades, and now they're just being reattached to a new fancy terminology. And I absolutely agree that small-sided games have been done for a number of years in basketball, going back several decades, but not kind of how they would be used within a constraint-led approach.
And that's something I'm seeing a lot with small-sided games kind of being used very generically without a real intention. And also being complemented by traditional forms of practice such as drills and technique instruction. And this would be very different to adopting a CLA intentionally.
So it's important to understand that the CLA is underpinned by ecological dynamics, and this is now a contemporary skill acquisition theory accounting for how, as human beings, we move and we interact within our environment in day-to-day life. So obviously this extends to basketball players and teams.
Now, information processing, it has been the dominant approach in skill acquisition for many years. And this is the idea that humans are almost like machines where we, we follow, uh, for every kind of movement, it's a 3-stage process where we perceive something, we decide on something within our brain, and then we select an action response and we move.
An ecological approach is very different to that. It's the idea of perception-action coupling where we are constantly perceiving things within our environment, and as we're perceiving, we're acting. And it's a continuous process, and these things are inextricably connected, so we can't separate them.
And an ecological approach is— it has huge implications for how we view our role as the coach. And I, I think it's really important that we understand some of the ecological phrases because If we don't understand them, it's gonna be hard to use a CLA well.
And an ecological approach has, has been early pioneers such as Keith Davids, Duarte Araújo, and many others. This has existed for many years. So one of the first papers on this by Keith Davids, Craig Hanford, and Mark Williams was in 1994, The Natural Physical Alternative to Cognitive Theories of Motor Behavior.
So this research is out there for us to benefit from. And I think ultimately the easiest application is really trying to get to grips with some of these ecological terms, and then it's going to allow you as a coach or whatever your role is to be able to really understand the CLA, and it will completely change the way you view basketball and how you run your practices.
So we've covered why an understanding of ecological dynamics is important, and I'm going to get to this later on, but of course When we look at the CLA, there is a theory to it, and I completely understand how it can be a little bit intimidating.
So my job today, I'm really going to try and break it down. So this starts with looking at the idea of what a constraint is, and I want to make it very clear that constraints are not merely kind of limiting or punishing factors of things that We're only just gonna kind of insist that players are limited by a constraint.
And I want to start with understanding how constraints are not simply limiting or punishing factors. And I think this is a big misunderstanding. We could, of course, manipulate a constraint which takes away some opportunities for what the players could do within their environment.
But we have to think much bigger than that. And this starts with Uh, Newell's constraints model of 1986, which is obviously a key part of the CLA. So Karl Newell did, uh, work on motor behavior and coordination within infants, and now obviously, uh, this model is being used by practitioners in sports all over the world.
So we have 3 categories of constraints. We have individual, task, and environment. And think of these as constraints are ever-present And they're constantly interacting. So the CLA, it's much more than just a coaching methodology because it actually accounts for how skills emerge in any environment.
So even the most traditional practice environment— picture players doing a 3-man weave or something like that— well, the CLA actually accounts for how those skills are emerging within that particular drill. But the key difference therefore is between coaches who have no theory and they use traditional activities and the CLA still accounts for how skills emerge within those drills, and the coaches who are using the CLA intentionally and purposefully for a very specific reason.
And that's obviously a huge difference. So understanding the CLA, it's, it's both a methodology and a framework to understand performance within basketball. So let's look at these constraint categories and view those as interactions. So all of these constraints interact and they shape the movements that we see in every possession.
So obviously the whole essence, and Ian Renshaw has argued this, if performance within sport is kind of stipulated by the ability of an athlete to successfully act in light of these interacting constraints, why do we not have practice environments which feature these. So individual constraints, we got things like height, weight, wingspan.
We've got action capabilities such as quickness, vertical jump speed, the acceleration, and then genetics. And individual constraints can change over long and fast time scales. So for instance, things which could change very quickly could be things like an athlete's mood, their fatigue levels, confidence, anxiety.
So those are our individual constraints. We are gonna get to our environmental constraints next, and these are a combination of physical and sociocultural factors. So physical considerations could be things like the playing surface, equipment, type of the balls, the rims being used, the noise levels in the arena, humidity, temperature, lighting.
So those are all the physical factors. And then sociocultural things like the values of an organization the player is on, the culture within the team. Their friendship group, their family, agent, social media influence. Maybe it's a professional playing in a contract year. I want to do a whole episode on something called forms of life in the future.
And the best example I can give you as to the influence of environmental constraints and why they're so important is Brazilian football. And I think environmental constraints have really been kind of misunderstood and the importance of them hasn't been appreciated in the past within the basketball industry.
So within Brazilian football, Brazilian players are notorious for their skill, their deception, their trickery. I think we often see that in basketball and we assume that these things can just be taught, but we don't understand the rich context and the background and the presence of these sociocultural historical constraints Which actually lead to those skills emerging.
So a lot of research has been conducted looking at why may Brazilian football players play in this way. And we understand very quickly that Brazilian society affords possibilities for these skillful behaviors to emerge. So poverty is widespread in Brazil and there's lots of favelas.
So that means that a lot of children grow up playing pelada, which is basically street football. On irregular surfaces with irregular number of players, different balls. So from a skill acquisition standpoint, it can actually be very, very beneficial. Then of course we've got things like samba music within Brazil, dancing.
So all these things, it creates a backdrop where naturally Brazilian players grow up where deception, fakes, and all these skills are highly valued. So that's the kind of the importance of environmental constraints, and I'm going to do more work on these in future episodes.
Modes. Some of these are known as forms of life, which leads to, you know, the exact reason why players may express skills or play in a particular way from a certain community. And I want to look at the implications of that for the basketball world.
Now, task constraints, our last category of constraint— these are the most readily manipulatable by us as coaches. So task constraints extend to the rules of basketball itself. So we've got time, maybe there's a shot clock, game clock. We've got the area boundaries, rules like traveling, double dribble, et cetera.
Then of course, we got location of teammates, location of defenders, types of defensive coverage. Maybe we're playing with a shot selection. Maybe we have principles of play that are conceptual, or maybe we're more set-based as a team. Now, critically, within the practice environment, I'd say some of the most kind of important task constraints would be How are players beginning a small-sided game?
What's like the start position? What's the number of players within the game? What's the scoring system that we're using? How are we delivering feedback as the coach? So these, of course, we have the most control over, but the whole essence of the CLA is that we understand that manipulating these 3 constraint categories leads to different skills emerging.
And I spoke about the essence of an affordance in episode 2, an opportunity for action within the game of basketball. The affordance landscape, the affordances that players encounter are constantly changing. So picture a pick and roll. Maybe a player might perceive an affordance to reject.
A defender takes that away. A new affordance may appear, maybe an opportunity to split before the pick. Maybe an opportunity to dribble over the pick, maybe a passing option. So the whole idea of the CLA is that we are manipulating constraints not generically, but to amplify specific affordances that we want to expose our players to within the practice environment.
I think what this naturally kind of progresses to is understanding what skill is. And I've got a definition here from Duarte Araújo and Keith Davids, 2 pioneers within the ecological space. And they state how skill is not a possession acquired by an individual, nor a fixed property of the performer, but rather a dynamically varying relationship captured by the constraints imposed by the environment and the resources of a performer.
So in, in other words, skill is emergent. It's not something that's acquired, stored, or internalized like we have traditionally coached over many decades. Skill emerges as a result of these constraints interacting. So therefore, we have to think, as we are manipulating these constraints within the practice environment, you know, different movement solutions are going to emerge.
And that is our role as the coach. So this is not devaluing the role of the coach. And I think some people have felt that that's the case with the CLA, and it's a, it's a very hands-off approach. It's really not, because our role of the coach is more important than ever Because if we are manipulating constraints well, well, we can have a huge impact on the development of our players.
So Stuart Armstrong of the Talent Equation podcast has previously spoken about, as a coach, when we're manipulating constraints, we might dial some things up and dial some things down. So it's just like DJ's deck where sometimes we might want to amplify affordances and expose players to more of something.
And other times we might not. So we have to manipulate constraints for a reason. So let's look at some examples of common constraint manipulations within small-sided games. So firstly, we could change how an activity starts by changing the starting positions of maybe a ball handler, teammates on offense, as well as defensive players.
So that's a very common one. You know, it could be to create more of an advantage on offense. It could be to create a neutral start where there's no advantage, or maybe even a disadvantage. And a really common example, maybe we're playing one-on-one, and what you typically see within a traditional approach or a games approach when one-on-one is played is players will always drive from the same locations.
Well, within the CLA, we want more variability, so the players will be changing location every time and even going from places like the corner and places they normally wouldn't go to if they kind of— if it wasn't highlighted to go from changing locations.
How many players are in the small-sided game? It's a very obvious one. Could be more offense if it's an advantage situation, could be less, could be equal, 1-on-1 to 5-on-5. The area played in— so a smaller area is going to make it more challenging for the offense, but more representative.
So for instance, if we're playing a 2-on-2 or a 3-on-3, if we are playing in the whole half of the half court, It's not representative. Whereas maybe if we constrain the space to 1/3 of the half court, it's gonna be more real based on what players will encounter within the game.
The defensive coverages, maybe we are in a small-sided game and the defense have a choice of 3 coverages to use, and they have to change coverage every time. Maybe we say you can't use the same coverage twice in a row, or maybe we just play against one coverage because we need to work on executing it better defensively or punishing it offensively.
And it could even be the offensive triggers used. That could be another example of constraint manipulation. Maybe we have a choice, maybe we're confined to one, and we really want to amplify affordances off a screen away or a pick and roll. And lastly, the point system.
So this is a big part of the CLA. It could be weighted scoring, awarding bonus points for certain behaviors, and whatever it is we want to emphasize. So a really easy one, shot selection. A lot of coaches will have done this. If we want to encourage rim finishes and 3s, we could devalue the mid-range, or we could award 5 points for a score in, in the small, in this restricted area.
So those are task constraints. Let's get to individual constraints. And for me, the big one here is changing the matchups and the teammates frequently within the practice environment. So picture our one-on-one finishing against a 7-foot help defender is gonna lead to a very different movement solution emerging.
Compared to a 6-foot-3 help defender. And likewise, trying to dribble past a really explosive 6-foot guard will be very different to a 6-foot-10 big. So what we want to do is constantly change these matchups as well as the teammates the players are playing with.
So something I did at college prep is we had one coach whose job would be constantly making sure the players moved around. So traditionally, when coaches do drills or small-sided games, players just stay at their basket until the next activity or the groups change.
Instead, we kind of want a, a free kind of conveyor belt where players just move back and forth. And why? Well, we want different interactions to develop more skilled players, as opposed to, you know, solely playing against the same people every time. We want them to be more adaptable as performers.
Now, if you are an athletic performance coach, or maybe you are a mental skills coach, obviously what you do in those fields, well, you can actually directly manipulate individual constraints. An effective CLA athletic program could obviously increase the vertical ability, the quickness of the players, as could something like a mindfulness program, you know, help players with breathing, mood, anxiety, etc.
Environmental constraints are the last one. Best example, playing loud music in a gym could increase player mood, or we might be playing arena sound to create a stressful environment where they can't communicate and they have to find a way to maybe execute offense or give defensive coverages over the arena music.
We could use different sized basketballs. I love doing this in shooting. It could be using a regulation size ball and a slightly smaller ball, slightly bigger ball, etc. Now let's look at how we can manipulate those 3 categories of constraints within 5 traditional drills and how we could take these drills and turn them into CLA activities.
And I picked these ones intentionally because I think they apply to You know, many levels of basketball. So the first one is finishing moves, players doing 1-on-0 finishing moves, repeating the same kind of move every time. But within the game itself, no move is preplanned.
So within the CLA, we would question the validity of such an approach. And instead, what we would want to do is create different environments where players self-organize and solve the problem of how to finish based on the constraints acting upon them at each particular moment in time as they go for their finishing attempt.
The easiest alternative is different types of constrained one-on-one, and I have maybe over 200 different types of one-on-one games. It's a lot more than just the traditional check the ball and play. So let's look at one. Let's imagine that we've got a help defender who is constrained to only playing defense in the SMILE, the restricted area.
We have an offensive player who has to start from a different location every time. Could be mid-range, could be the block, could be the elbow, could be the corner 3, top of the 3. And the offensive player will stay for— that's going to take 8 finishes, and they can only score in the smile.
And their goal is to get 5 of 8 finishes, otherwise the defensive player wins. And if they don't get to the smile, it doesn't count. The defender can do whatever they can to stop them from scoring, but can only stay in the smile.
And that's the game. Go. And we watch as the coach and we see how are they self-organizing, what problems are emerging. So maybe, for instance, the offensive player, when there's a situation where they have to use their weak hands, they're not very adept at doing that.
Maybe they don't exploit space well under the basket. Maybe they resort to doing the same solution because they've been trained in a traditional environment. They try and do the same techniques over and over again and not successful. So we gotta be watching this and then manipulating constraints for a reason.
So we'd let them do their 8 reps, we'd change roles so the defender can get a turn playing offense, and then we're not probably gonna play the same version of that game again. And this is the biggest difference with the CLA and Games approach.
And a lot of people over the years have said they thought they understood kind of what I was speaking about until they came and they saw me coach in person. And they realized the pace at which we move in a practice and how, you know, in a 45-minute player development session, we will do so many different things.
And the reason why is because I'm manipulating constraints. So the next round we play it, maybe it was too difficult for the offense, and I say, okay, the defender is not allowed to jump now, so it's gonna be a little bit easier. Or maybe it was too easy for the offense, and I, I add an extra defender and we make it a 1 against 2.
And it could be different for both players. So one player might need more of a 1-on-2 setting, and maybe we have an extra primary defender, and he has to beat— he or she has to beat that primary defender outside the 3-point line and get by them before they then get that 1-on-1 at the rim.
Whereas the other player, maybe we do a different activity. Maybe they need to improve rejecting in pick and roll. So we create a pick and roll situation. We script the reject where we say you're only gonna reject. So there's no real decision. However, we are playing defense at the same time.
So they've gotta find a good solution to reject, which is functional, and the ball doesn't get stolen, and then they can go into their one-on-one. So again, it's how we know what to do is based on what emerges and knowing our players really, really well.
So that could be one example of how we'd approach finishing Through a CLA-type practice activity. Now we're gonna get to the shell drill, one of the most popular drills in basketball, and I wanna introduce the concept of knowledge about versus knowledge of. And this comes from JJ Gibson, an ecological psychologist.
Obviously, ecological psychology is one half of the fields of ecological dynamics. So performance in basketball It's not about knowing, but it's about doing. So what I mean by that is traditionally we see a lot of drills like the shell drill, where as the coaches we believe that we are getting the players prepared to succeed within the game by giving them lots of information, telling them what we're going to do, how we want to play, and then kind of really repping it out in very sterile practice environments.
But the ability to be successful in the game is not about knowing something or listening to a coach. It's, it's being a— being able to do it and actually do it in a representative environment where there's a little bit of unpredictability and there's a little bit of chaos.
So a drill like a shell drill is extremely limited because the defense always knows what's gonna happen. And typically, as you see how it starts with the offense only passing, well, that's not representative at all because the aim of offense is to score and create an advantage.
And an offense is never going to be passing just to pass. The intention is completely different to the intention within the game itself. So therefore, the shell drill, I believe, has extremely little to no value. And when Gibson spoke about knowledge about, he referred to how that is, you know, players potentially giving replies and, you know, giving correct answers to coaches.
It could be things such as in the film room. It could be basically anything related to knowledge about basketball that isn't actually embodied and done within a performance or practice environment. And that's what knowledge of is. It's actually the players doing it and showing it within a small-sided game that is somewhat representative, aka it's got defenders, or in the game itself.
So as coaches, we need to strive to develop knowledge of As opposed to knowledge about. I think a lot of the time we confuse that by saying something to the players, we assume we've coached it and we assume they know it and they'll be able to do it.
But it means nothing. What we really need to be looking for is, are players actually doing this and maybe demonstrating this principle of play effectively within the practice environment? Because if they're not doing that, it's probably not gonna transfer. This is why the shell drill is very limited, because it's a knowledge about drill.
It doesn't develop any element of knowledge of whatsoever. So what can we do to fix that using the CLA? We're gonna need to play live and have defenders in there who can move in a somewhat representative way. So obviously, if we want to use coaches and a pro team, fine.
But let's try and get some coaches in there who can, you know, create an affordance landscape that's somewhat real to what the game will present. Now, we could do this 4-on-4. And I think that could be a good starting point. But remember that the rotation in 4-on-4 is completely different to 5-on-5.
So we also, you know, we need to get to some 5-on-5 with this. And what we could do is give the offense an advantage. And maybe we have corners and 45s, so your regular kind of shell spacing, but the offense will always begin in a different place.
So it could be 45, could be corner. The defense who defends The ball handler that starts starts behind them, so there's an advantage. Soon as the offense goes, the defense have to rotate and try to go back to neutral and lose the advantage that the offense start with.
And that would be a very representative way we could work on defensive rotations. Now, what could we do to change constraints, make that more variable? Well, I think we need to change the spacing of the offense. Very rarely will the offense ever be corners, 45s every time.
So that means we said, we could say the task constraint is every rep you need to be in a new space on offense. So we might have a 3-side and then 1 player on the weak side corner. We might have a dunker field, 2 corners, 1 player at the top.
Always gotta be different. Then of course we need to get to 5-on-5. So that, an example of that could be, okay, we're gonna start with a side pick and roll with a 2-side ahead, a single side behind. Defense, you must allow the ball handler to reject, and then it's live from there.
So now we're developing knowledge of— we're creating an environment where players can actually apply defensive principles of play in a representative manner, which is far more likely to be similar to what they actually experience in the game itself. Now, something I understand with the shell is it looks good, and coaches feel like it's good to get rehearsal reps.
But again, When we understand knowledge about versus knowledge of, we see the difference. And if you really see a value to players kind of executing other coverages within a shell, well, you could just constrain it. So you could say, before the offense goes live, maybe there's one pick and roll that the defense has to defend.
Or maybe you say, and it, and it's a surprise, you quickly get the offense in, they stay 3 reps in a row, and the defense gets 3 reps, and you whisper to the offense, all right, These are the 3 triggers you're going to use, and let's see if the defense can guard it.
And it's live immediately. So maybe the first one is a pick and roll in the middle, and we see if the defense can prepare the coverage. Maybe the second one is a stack pick and roll, aka a Spain. And maybe the third one, it's something completely different.
Maybe it's a pistol. So what we want to do is be unpredictable. And that's the biggest problem I have with the shell. It's not unpredictable. The defense always knows what it is, and we need this level of variability and a surprise if we really want to see how these concepts are going to transfer to the game.
Spot shooting. Easiest way to start here is just have the defend— a defender start with the ball and always have them come from a different place. So they could be behind the shooter, could be in front, diagonal, side on, and they're going to be giving different passes every time.
Could be high, low, with spin, bounce pass. The shooter is always gonna change range and location on every shot, even if it's just taking 2 steps. That is gonna promote more variability. And when the defender passes it from different distances, they're gonna close out and try and contest or block the shot.
Easy. 8 shots and change. Now, how could we manipulate constraints more on that? Then maybe next time we say, okay, now you're only shooting 3s and you have 1 dribble, but you could only shoot a 3. So now players will have to self-organize and find ways if they don't think they can shoot the catch and shoot.
How they can maybe find a way to stay outside the 3-point line to get an extra point, maybe use a slide dribble, maybe use a step back. All these different things will emerge. Maybe we have 2 offensive players, 2 shooters, 1 defender. They can't move.
They can only shoot or pass. They have 2 passes to get an open shot. So now we've got a pass decision and a shot decision. We've got some different affordances within this 2-on-1. So that would be a CLA approach to shooting, and it's still Lots of repetitions.
You know, if we're doing that one-on-one, we get loads of reps. The key difference is it's not repetition after repetition. It's Bernstein's concept of repetition without repetition, which is very important. 5-on-0 offense. So the biggest problem with no defenders is there are no authentic affordances.
And when we go on air, we suggest to the players that they need to run offense from the perspective of running patterns. And that's not the goal of a good offense. The goal of a good offense is to create scoring opportunities at every part of a set.
So even if, even if running a conceptual offense, the whole idea of a conceptual offense is that players create advantages based on what the defense gives them. So if we don't have the defense and we insist that players just run patterns, it defeats the object of the offense.
So the easiest alternative is literally just adding some defenders. It could even just be 3 defenders who can play defense in a variable way and change their coverages and also do surprising things. So, you know, sometimes they might randomly trap a ball handler.
Sometimes they might leave the worst shooters open and see how the other players respond. They might be alternating pick and roll coverages every possession. And this is exactly what we want. We want a level of unpredictability and we want players who are attuned to advantage-creating affordances during every part of an offense.
And the last one we're going to look at today is the warm-up. So traditionally what we see in the basketball world is routines, movements, and dynamic stretches. We would question the effectiveness of such activities from a CLA perspective because it simply doesn't prepare players for what they encounter in the game in terms of the chaotic nature of basketball, as well as all the movements that they will be actually using, as well as all the movements that the players will be using and demonstrating.
So instead of these routines, which kind of get players experiencing a very narrow range of movement solutions, we want them to experience a very wide range of movement solutions. So this could be doing things like tag games, which players of all levels love, and it could also involve actually A basketball too, so they could be trying to dribble against some type of opponent to get the ball into an end zone.
They might have to pass the ball into an end zone. There's loads of different things we can do in the warm-up. This is very important because to develop more skillful, adaptive players, they need to be in better control of their body and know how to actually move in different ways.
And if we can facilitate that within the warm-up. Then when we're using a CLA with these practice tasks, players are actually going to move their body in different ways and thus become more skillful because of some of those activities that have been done in a warm-up.
So very important. And I think we— there's enormous value to adopting a CLA in this field as opposed to traditional warm-up routines. You might have heard of the phrase a nonlinear pedagogy. And for me, this is something that exists kind of in between.
Say we've got ecological dynamics as the base framework. And we got the CLA as the coaching methodology that we're using, a nonlinear pedagogy is right in the middle. And this is also informed by ecological dynamics. And all it is, is there are 5 design principles of a nonlinear pedagogy, which if we understand them as coaches and if we adopt these in our practice tasks, it means that we're using a CLA intentionally and probably purposefully.
So, you know, if we do these things, we are naturally using the CLA well. Now I'm gonna explain these quickly, and we are gonna have a future episode just on nonlinear pedagogy and the 5 design principles. So the first one is representative learning design.
And I think this, I've, I've spoken about representative already on this podcast. It's probably the easiest one. And we are creating small slices of the game in practice. So picture a representative dial from 0 to 10, and 10 would be the game itself, 5-on-5.
1 would be something like an agility ladder, dribbling through cones, 2-wall dribbling. We want to live probably between 3 and 8 on the dial, and we can't just do 5-on-5 in practice, and that's not optimal for skill adaptation because there aren't specific enough affordances for players to perceive and act upon in order to become better players.
So this is where small-sided games are critical because we are amplifying affordances and creating more repetition about repetition. So something such as a 1-on-1 plus 1. You know, that's still representative because how the offensive player moves is going to be based on what they're perceiving within the defense and maybe the movements of their teammates.
So that's the first one, representative learning design. Second one I'm going to get to is relevant information movement couplings, and this is kind of linked to task simplification. So what I mean by that, how players move in the game of basketball is based on the players coupling their movements to specifying relevant information.
For instance, a player will perform a crossover of some type, maybe if they perceive space to go to a particular side of a defender, or if they see a defender reaching to try and maybe steal the ball. So when we remove that information, we insist that players just do the move without the information.
Well, players are coupling the movement to non-specifying information. There's nothing there in their environment to dictate that the crossover was a good solution. And how players move in the game is constantly coupling their movement to relevant information. So this means we can't use things like cones or practicing on air without defenders.
We've got to find a way to create specifying information, which will actually shape how players move in a similar manner to the practice. To what they encounter in the game. Third one, constraint manipulation. So purposefully manipulating constraints, not just manipulating constraints generically or for a reason.
I've spoken about this already, so I think this is a very important one, and we've got to be watching, observing, and understand the intention behind why we might be using a constraint versus just doing it to fill time in a practice or to create a small-sided game.
Functional variability. So I've already spoken about the power variability a lot, and I think the idea of functional is key because what we want is players who can express functionality in their movements. So as opposed to finishing in one way or with a few different techniques that have been taught, skilled players can finish in a plethora of different ways.
It's the same with passing, it's the same with dribbling, shooting. So how we develop this functionality is through variability in all the things I mentioned today. And that's what a skilled player is. It's, it's someone who can be functional in many different parts of the game, as opposed to merely applying a fundamental and one kind of very specific rehearsed technique, which might not fit the situation that a player encounters.
And the last one is attentional focus. So this is the idea of using an external focus of attention versus internal. Now, what we see traditionally, especially when we're teaching moves, is a lot of coaches correct technique, but the research tells us that when we try and give this internal feedback, it's actually detrimental to performance.
So we want to externalize the movement so that the players aren't conscious of how they're actually controlling specific parts of their body, what positions, angles they need to be in. And a lot of this, the work in this space comes from Gabrielle Wolfe, great researcher.
She produced a lot of this material, and we will do a podcast on external versus internal at some point in the future. Practical example, instead of telling a player how to shoot with their body, we could just cue them, some saying shoot higher, or maybe try and score a BRAD, back rim and down.
So as we wrap up today's podcast, I just want you to think about why we manipulate constraints, and it's gotta be for an intention, for a reason. And for me, there are 2 obvious reasons. One, to develop principles of play. So maybe we have some offensive and defensive principles of play, or manipulating constraints could cause for those to emerge, and we can develop those principles in a small-sided game.
Secondly, in response to an obvious weakness within individual players. So, you know, this is where we can really individualize the CLA and have different start activities, different constraints being used for different players. And a big question I typically receive very frequently is, can we use the CLA alongside drills?
And this comes full circle back to the importance of understanding an ecological dynamics framework, because if we understand an ecological approach, we understand that drills aren't relevant. And it actually conflicts with what we believe in. Because if we believe that movement occurs due to the perception of affordances, and we believe that movement is self-organizing, why would we then try and control and teach the movement and contradict with these natural self-organizational tendencies that are inherent to us as human beings and to every player?
So that is why I don't see a case of drills first, then the CLA, because it's incompatible theoretically. And instead, we want self-organization from the very beginning. We want to create environments where perception-action coupling is kept integrated from the very beginning through applying those 5 principles of a nonlinear pedagogy, which I just shared.
So practical applications as we conclude today, and I want to look at the idea of how the CLA can be applied with beginners, youth, and collegiate and professional teams, the, you know, these different levels of basketball. So with beginners, I think the, the concept of task simplification is key.
And we spoke about it when I, when I mentioned relevant information movement couplings, dribbling through cones and all this stuff. It's not preparing players in an environment where they can become skillful. So we have to think, how can we simplify versus removing defense?
So it could be that the, the defense has one hand, or they have a few steps they can use, or There's a bigger space to play in. Maybe there's 2 baskets to score on. We have to be creative. And I think the most important kind of constraint manipulation at the beginner level is equipment and equipment scaling.
So that means using smaller basketballs, using lower hoops, because this provides more affordances for players to move in a way that's more representative to the adult game of basketball. So players will actually be able to shoot 3s as opposed to not being able to shoot 3s and only being able to score layups.
So that obviously has Big implications on skillful performance. Now, after beginners, we've got youth basketball. So for me, I think this is the one where if you're a coach in this space, you can be the most creative because you have no excuse not to use the CLA at this age group.
And I think we use the CLA here to start introducing principles of play. So this could be dominoes, spacing, a few triggers. I think this is where, you know, we understand why we're using the CLA. We're not just using a games approach of generic small-sided games.
And particularly at this age group, we have to embrace the idea of functional over fundamental. Can players solve problems in different ways? Can they shoot, pass, dribble, drive, play defense, all expressing different movement solutions which achieve the task over us trying to teach fundamentals which may not make sense given the individual constraints of every player are so different.
Now I'm gonna finish with collegiate and professional in the same box, and I think From everything I've observed over the years at this level, the idea of representative learning design is very important. And I kind of spoke about it in the shell drill and knowledge about versus knowledge of.
We have to create more representative environments and find ways that we can do that at this level because it has a huge impact on performance of the team and the skillful behaviors of the players. I really believe at this level, I believe that skill acquisition is the next Moneyball.
So embracing variability is key. And in most environments at this level, we see variability is treated as noise, as something that's undesirable. But we gotta understand that not only is variability essential to performance in basketball, but it's actually required. If we want players to become better, we need to find ways to amplify variability in practice as opposed to putting players in these very specific routines and movement pattern executions.
Now, there are 2 papers I would recommend if you're interested in the ideas I shared today and really want to help, you know, and, and you really want some of these terms to become like second nature and you want to start maybe using them in your practice.
These 2 papers I would recommend as a starting point, and these are number one, Understanding How Athletes Learn: Integrating Skill Training Concepts, Theory, and Practice from an Ecological Perspective. And this was done by Fabian Otter Keith David, Sarah Kate Miller, and Stephanie Clapp.
And the second paper, Advice from Pracademics of How to Apply Ecological Ideas to Practice Design, and this is by Jieyi Xiao, Craig Morris, Chris Button. And the second one, Advice from Pracademics of How to Apply Ecological Ideas to Practice Design by Jieyi Xiao, Chris Button, and Craig Morris.
And we will include these on the transformingbasketball.com website. But they're really nice entry-level papers, which I think will really kind of consolidate some of the ideas I spoke about today. So that's today's podcast episode wrapped up. If you have any questions, feel free to obviously get in touch with me.
You can contact us via social media. And I really just wanted to practically give an understanding of how the CLA can be applied as well as the theory behind it. And obviously with everything we're sharing over Transforming Basketball, we're going much deeper into these ideas.
And really showing you how we can constrain purposefully for a reason versus not having any specific intention as to why we are using the CLA. So thanks for joining and hope to see you on another episode shortly. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast.
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