ABSTRACT
Variability in achieving consistent performance outcomes has become increasingly recognized as important in preparing for dynamic performance contexts like sport. Here, we examine the theoretical basis for viewing variability as functional and examine the implications for understanding training for sport in individual and team sports. The issue of a putative optimal movement pattern, common to all learners, is challenged. In this chapter, we describe motor expertise as the capacity to functionally adapt behaviours to satisfy key constraints in order to achieve intended performance outcomes. Darwin, amongst many others, recognized the fundamental value of individual variation and adaptation for the functional behaviour and long-term survival of biological organisms. Similarly, at the timescale of perception and action, success in sport is underpinned by the capacity of athletes to capitalize on their individual strengths and to respond appropriately to different challenges. Indeed, the principles of overload in physical training (i.e. frequency, intensity, duration, type) are built upon biological adaptation through which the human body becomes increasingly prepared to function more efficiently and to produce sufficient energy to attain higher performance goals. The importance of adaptability in motor control was originally raised by Bernstein (1996) when he conceptualized the notion of resourcefulness (i.e. stability and initiative) as an important property of an organism’s dexterity (p. 221). Whilst performing a complex coordination pattern may be difficult for a learner in sport, more challenging is its functional adaptation to a specific performance context; i.e. in responding to interacting constraints (task, environmental, or organismic) that continually change over time (Newell 1986). Biryukova and Bril (2002) commented that ‘the dexterity is not movements in themselves, but their ability to adapt to external constraints’ (p. 65).
