The desired outcome represents a broad perspective of the ultimate performance ideal without the consideration of context, perceived, or real limits and limitations. This may be categorized as a want or a need from the perspective of the patient, athlete, therapist, or coach.
Examples:
Walk without knee pain
Reduce 100m sprint time
Jump to touch 11 feet
Create more defined looking musculature
Increase deadlift 1 RM
The constraints then begin to provide contextual elements, limitations, and absolute limits that overlap and influence the desired outcome.
The constraints are imposed upon the desired outcome from the interaction of the physical constraints of the human, required task demands, and the performance environment (see Newell’s model). This interaction determines the degree to which the human constraints must be altered to move toward the desired outcome.
Anatomy and physiology represent the behavioral and structural constraints of the human system that interact with perception. [Note: Behavioral constraints is my term. The literature uses the term functional constraints in this case. In my perspective, complex adaptive humans behave rather than function like complicated machines. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, this is my perspective, and I’m sticking to it.] According to Glazier interpreting Sparrow and Newell, constraints are internal or external boundaries, limitations, or design features that restrict the number of possible configurations of the many degrees of freedom that a complex system can adopt.
Structural constraints are the relatively stable or slow changing elements within the system such as anatomy and anatomical relationships, genetics, neurology, muscle mass, body composition, joint movement potential, and the like. To simplify, it is the “stuff” when we refer to the human being 99% water and 1% stuff.
Behavioral constraints, on the other hand, are those elements of the system that are capable of greater variability and change more rapidly. These constraints tend to be more related to physiological measure and psychological influences. Cardiovascular measures, thoughts, emotions, endocrinological changes, and sensation are considered in these behavioral constraints.
Whereas the desired outcome represented the broader perspective of performance requiring potentially multiple layers of change within the system, the target represents the specific change intended by the immediate course of action within the working model. This may be a change in the behavioral or structural constraints depending on the current state of the system.
Glazier, P. S. Towards a Grand Unified Theory of sports performance. Human Movement Science (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2015.08.001
Sparrow and Newell 1998. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 1998.5(2). 173-196
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