Application Into Individual Swing
Constraint:
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Limitation or restriction.
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Repression of natural feelings and impulses.
In 1986 Karl Newell created his model of constraints specific to movement. This model consists of 3 factors that influence, control and impact movement development. Listed, and when specifically applied to golf, they are:
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Task - Aim of the action/performance.
(Rules of golf, golf equipment)
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Environment - The world and forces outside of the individual.
(Golf course arrangement, weather, gravity, momentum, ground force reaction)
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Individual - Bodily structures, behaviours and values.
(Physical capabilities, skillsets, motivation, focus, management of pressure)
All 3 factors have a significant influence over each players performance and abilities. However the swing through movement screen and motion correction model focusses on the individual constraints in order to improve the task - shot success - alongside the successful control and management of the surrounding environment.
As we have established each player will have their own number of individual and unique physical constraints within their movement systems. Some will be known through previous identification by a professional or their own intrinsic knowledge of the restrictions or limitations and some will remain undiscovered. The screen establishes these unknown obstacles to optimal movement but then the focus becomes what we do with this information and how we apply it effectively to each player to enhance performance.
This is the specific and precise application of movement data of a players constraints into constructing the program and plan that can directly remedy these limitations. Through a course of movement and performance progress of the targeted restrictions we increase the individuals capability, range, control and power of swing.
As each player is different, releasing any constraining limitations, opens up a wider availability of swing variability, which in turn offers up greater opportunity for further accomplishments. If the constraints are unknown and not addressed then the players potential can remain unrealised.
Trying to make each shot execution exactly the same for each player and on each swing is a constraint in itself. Every player is different. Each shot has many nuanced, precise differences on each repetition. Therefore we allow the player to explore and optimise these individualities within swing motion to search of further capability by reducing and eliminating constraints. In doing so there is a wider and more varied spectrum of solutions to the problems that the challenge of golf can provide.
‘Unlike the prescriptive way movement skills have traditionally been coached, the manipulation of constraints is not an attempt to give the performer the solution (the “correct” technique) to the problem. I like to think of constraints as informative boundaries. They guide self-organisation by pushing performers away from certain solutions, encouraging them to look for others, and providing them information about how they should change how they are moving.’
R. Gray. How we learn to move.