Learning and performing, not telling them what to do & more
Here's some Skill Acquisition content for you to explore over the weekend. I hope you enjoy it!
This week at a sconce
Research Insight: Learning and performing
Podcast Snip: Designing Environments for Young Leaners
Quote: Don’t tell them what to do, create the situation
Resource: Steph Curry’s adaptable free throw
Tweet: The chaotic performance environment
Research Insights
Learning and performing: What can theory offer high performance sports practitioners?
This was a fantastic paper from Ian Renshaw, Mark O’Sullivan and Keith Davids. It emphasises that learning and performing are deeply connected, meaning training should expose athletes to the same unpredictable constraints they’ll face in competition. By shifting focus from rigid techniques to developing knowledge through interaction with the environment, coaches can design practice that builds more adaptable players that can thrive in the dynamic performance environment.
Here are my 5 key insights:
1)In (high-performance) sport, learning isn’t just about perfecting a skill in training— it’s about being able to adjust and perform under real game conditions. A player’s ability to adapt to different challenges, like pressure, fatigue, or changes in the environment, is what really shows progress. Instead of just measuring learning by how well a skill looks in isolation, we should focus on how well athletes adjust their actions to meet the demands of the game
“An implication of these issues for high performance sport is that learning needs to be assessed by how well a learner adapts to the specific constraints and demands of a performance context. This key idea has important implications for performance analysis and evaluation in sport.”
2)Learning is about helping players develop a functional fit with their environment—reading the game and adapting their actions to what’s happening around them. The better they recognise and use the opportunities (affordances) available, the more effective their decisions and movements will be.
"Learning is concerned with developing an increasingly functional fit between each individual and a performance environment and highlights that humans perceive information in the environment in relation to its value and meaningfulness detected in affordances."
3)Stability in performance doesn’t come from repeating the same movement every time—it comes from adaptability. Players who can adjust their actions to different situations develop functional variability, allowing them to stay effective under changing conditions. This happens through softly assembled synergies—temporary movement patterns that emerge to meet the demands of the game in the moment. For example, a footballer slightly adjusting their dribbling based on the pitch, weather, or defender’s movements is using a softly assembled synergy—reacting and adapting rather than relying on a fixed technique.
"Stability (of performance outcome) is, therefore, more likely to be achieved by movement adaptability through enhanced functional variability and the development of softly assembled synergies (temporary coordination patterns) that satisfy task demands at any moment."
4)Our goal in training is going to be developing knowledge ‘of’ the game which players develop by directly interacting with their environment. By training in rich and varied environments, players learn to adjust and manage their own actions without relying on constant instructions. This helps them build stable (stable as in discussed above) perception-action couplings, meaning they can quickly recognise key information in a game and respond effectively
"Exposing learners to rich and varied practice environments can promote opportunities for individuals to develop knowledge of the performance environment by learning to self-regulate and adapt (relatively) stable perception-action couplings to emergent problems."
5)This was one of my favourite pieces from the paper-a nice question for coaches to contemplate. If players need to adapt to unpredictable game situations, training should prepare them for this reality
"If successful performance requires adaptability to changes in personal, task and/or environmental characteristics, why would we not practice in performance environments that challenge individuals to deal with dynamic individual, task and environmental constraints that emerge in competitive contexts?"
Reference
Renshaw, Ian, Keith Davids, and Mark O'Sullivan. "Learning and performing: What can theory offer high performance sports practitioners?." Brazilian Journal of Motor Behavior 16.2 (2022): 162-178.
Podcast Snip
I really enjoyed listening back to this snip from Mark O'Sullivan on the Perception Action Podcast during the week. One of the key messages is that we need to design environments that are compatible with young learner’s abilities or meeting them where they are at. I loved when he talked about how we need to create value for them exploring the behaviours we would like to see like moving away from the ball to create space rather than just telling them what to do. Another key message is to need to use language that is relatable to them-concepts like depth and width will probably go over to head of many young players which is another important part of meeting them where they are at.
Quote
“Don’t tell them what to do; create a situation through the game where they arrive at the solution themselves.”-Ric Shuttleworth
This great piece of coaching advice from Ric Shuttleworth captures nicely the key idea of ‘constraining to afford’. The idea is that the performer makes the decision to act, rather than being forced into a specific action. So in our practice environment we might make an option more appealing, but players still have alternative choices.
In a recent soccer match, players were frequently shooting straight at the goalkeeper instead of aiming for the corners. Instead of instructing them to "place their shots”, in the next session we adjusted the scoring system:
✅ 3 points for a shot placed in the corner
✅ 1 point for any other goal
✅ Goalkeepers earn 5 points for a save
✅ First to 20 wins
This ‘spotlighted’ shot placement without removing player choice—they could still score any way they wanted, but were naturally guided toward using the corners.
Resource:
Steph Curry Shooting
This is a brilliant graphic that shows the variability that is seen in the free throws of Steph Curry. The x (bottom) axis of the graph is his position from the centre of the court and the y-axis (side) is the height of the shot. It shows how each shot is going to be slightly different and how it’s impossible to repeat the same movement exactly.
A nice little test to experiment with this at home is to get a piece of paper and a pen. Draw two dots roughly 10cm apart. Then try draw a line over and back 10 times without lifting your pen.
https://x.com/CoachDaveLove/status/1888671602226638939
Tweet
The Dynamic Nature of the Performance Environment
I love how this picture captures the dynamic and chaotic nature of the game environment. As we discussed in above, in these dynamic environments adaptability is going to be crucial for successful performance.
