ECB Coaches Association links Coaching Insight 2019 | Page 30

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Constraints
We want to build into players
the ability to subconsciously
make decisions, to trust
themselves to execute a skill
without thinking. If you worry
about where your elbow is
when playing a shot, then
you’ve forgotten about the
ball. But by shaping a player’s
environment in training we
can help develop that
decision-making ability.
Part of the skill of planning
a constraints-based session
is creating some pressure.
If there’s no pressure in the
practice, it’s harder to grow that
subconscious decision-making
ability, and you’re not preparing
players fully for the reality of a
match situation.
Manipulate constraints,
manipulate rules, create
scenarios.
It isn’t easy coaching. How
do you go about creating the
pressure that batting out the
final overs brings? How do
you change the rules part-way
through a practice game to
help a batter who is hitting the
ball in the air all the time? But it
is effective, and can make a real
difference to the development
of your players.
“Your environment
shapes the player
you become. But
environments can be
manipulated.”