Contemporary coaching practices such as the Constraint-Led Approach (CLA) have gained traction in recent years within academic literature and applied practice. However, despite the growing popularity of the CLA there remains challenges with the successful implementation across applied settings. Formal education that adopts top-down hierarchical approaches and is decontextualised from coaches’ sociocultural contexts has been attributed to this challenge. To investigate this problem further, the purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of implementing a CLA curriculum within British Diving’s Learn to Dive programme. Twenty-one British Diving coaches (10 male and 11 female) were interviewed for this study. The coaches’ insights indicated that a new model of coaching was needed to improve the learning and development experiences of the Learn to Dive participants; however, factors such as opposing philosophies about learners and the learning process, path dependency, and operational priorities were identified as potential barriers to implementation. These findings suggest that the implementation of alternative coaching methods should be considered in the context of the sport and the coaches’ needs, experience, and sociocultural–historical biases. Documenting context-specific learning experiences through qualitative research designs can start to address the challenges and provide potential solutions to successfully implementing contemporary learning designs.

The aim of this insights paper is to propose how the theory of ecological dynamics may invite re-consideration of how sport scientists could support performance, learning and development of children and youth in sports programmes. We seek to outline why learning should be individualised and contextualised, based on the specific needs of learners, such as children and youth, women and disabled athletes in sport. Case examples from individual and team sports are presented to illustrate how constraints can be designed to enrich interactions of children and youth with different performance environments, based on integrating principles of specificity and generality in learning and development. These case examples suggest how a collaborative effort by sport scientists and coaches in children and youth sport may be undertaken in a department of methodology to enrich learning and performance.