Joe Stone

• PhD, MSc, BSc.
• Professor (Associate) at Sheffield Hallam University

The environments in which coaches help create have a significant influence on the development of talented players. Therefore, this study investigated perceptions of talent development environments (TDEs) and coach-created motivational climates among South African youth football players. A total of 112 male amateur players (M age = 16.2 ± 1.1 years;...

Objective This study aimed to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the latest Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 6 (SCAT6) into simplified Chinese. Design This study adopted a mixed design with both qualitative and quantitative methods. The quantitative part of the study adopted a repeated measures design. Setting The translation and revision...

Soccer clubs employ multidisciplinary sport science teams (MDT) to facilitate and enhance player development and performance. Without a shared framework in an MDT, guiding a coordinated and integrated approach, the support mechanisms adopted may be disjointed, reductionist and fragmented, impeding communication, and leading to ineffective athlete d...

Flow is an optimal state of absorption that may be experienced in appropriately challenging and intrinsically motivating activities such as sports. Flow may be an important concept for understanding the emergence and role of sport in society, yet theoretical explanations of flow have had limited success explaining, predicting, and facilitating flow...

Historically within UK professional football environments, women’s coaching representation has been low, irrespective of gender participation. The involvement of women coaches in the context of men’s football has been contested due to dominant hegemonic masculinity. For the limited number of women coaches in the men’s game, there is a need for deep...

Objective Currently, there is a gap in knowledge on what the key goalkeeper attributes are during talent identification and selection in soccer. Hence, the objective was to investigate South African coaches’ perceptions regarding key attributes of talented youth soccer goalkeepers. Design Cross-sectional survey. Methods A total of 173 soccer coac...

Introduction Despite significant debate over UEFA’s decision to abolish the away goals rule in 2021, little research has considered its potential effects on technical performance. Therefore, this study investigates how the change in the UEFA Women’s Champions League away goals rule affected a subset of technical performance indicators. Methods Dat...

Objectives: Well-being is multifaceted, encompassing biopsychosocial, temporal, and contextual aspects. Exploring the person-context interaction of well-being and how temporality shapes it is crucial due to its dynamic nature. Men’s professional football, characterized as volatile and demanding, can impede coaches’ well-being as its masculine cultu...

A flow state describes intrinsically rewarding experiences of complete absorption in a task. While descriptive accounts of flow have gained prominence in “popular” psychology, scientific research has reached a crisis point due to perceived limitations of current theoretical explanations for the experience. Here, we evaluate key metatheoretical fram...

Notational analysis investigations of several sports have suggested that the performance characteristics associated with success differ by match closeness. It is not known whether this is the case in tennis. Therefore, this study aimed to first develop operational definitions for closely contested and one‐sided tennis matches, then establish whethe...

This study aimed to examine the effect of goalkeeper distribution on offensive team performance, during the 2018/2019 and 2019–2020 seasons of the Women Spanish La Liga. A total of 10,868 distributions, during 376 matches were analyzed by systematic observation. Two UEFA PRO coaches designed an ad hoc observation instrument “GOALDFOOT” and one obse...

Football coaches often address how their work environment is volatile and demanding, encompassing an array of stressors, which can inhibit well-being (Baldock et al., 2021). The cultural masculinity within football habitually instills suppression of voice, often causing inhibition and isolation. To demonstrate the voice of coaches and to facilitate...

Little is known about how coaches make sense of and experience well-being within their given context as athletes have traditionally been at the forefront of well-being research, which is concerning given coaches are as susceptible to well-being challenges. Considering well-being and coaching comprise of many idiosyncratic and sociocultural interact...

Equestrianism is part of a global industry influenced by a rich history of over 4000 years of culture and tradition. As the only interspecies Olympic event, equestrianism is facing negative public perceptions of competition performance and traditional coaching practices. In this position paper, we propose a constraints-led approach as a framework f...

Football coaches have disclosed how their work environment is unpredictable and demanding, comprising a multitude of stressors which can impede well-being. Additionally, the masculine culture within football often promotes suppression of voice, causing internalisation of thoughts and isolation. Due to professional football head coaches being a seld...

Research has suggested Parkour-style training could act as a donor sport for athlete development in team sports. This study aimed to interrogate expert consensus on the feasibility of integrating Parkour-style training into team sport practice, by employing a three-round, online Delphi method. Talent development and strength and conditioning coache...

This presentation informed and was delivered before the publication of: Higham, A. J., Newman, J. A., Rumbold, J. L., & Stone, J. A. (2023). You wouldn’t let your phone run out of battery: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of male professional football coaches’ well-being. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 1-15. https://...

Equestrianism is part of a global industry influenced by a rich history of over 4000 years of culture and tradition. As the only interspecies Olympic event, equestrianism is facing negative public perceptions of competition performance and traditional coaching practices. In this position paper, we propose a constraints-led approach as a framework f...

The value of talent development programmes, aimed at nurturing children and adolescents into high performance sport, has been widely questioned. However, there seems to be some agreement that the general concept of talent development is not the issue, rather, the problems exist in the design, implementation, and management of these systems. These c...

Research demonstrates the benefits of a more contemporary, ecological-dynamics led approach in sport coaching; however, traditional methods of practice design persist. Few studies have explored the intentions of performance tennis coaches as they design practice. This study explored performance tennis coach philosophies and approaches to practice d...

Contemporary learning and development models have identified parkour-style training as a vehicle for athlete enrichment. However, perceptions of team-sport coaches and their receptiveness to such models of athlete enrichment have not been investigated and remain unclear. To explore how parkour-style training could be integrated into athlete develop...

Providing augmented information (i.e. feedback and instruction) is considered a dominant coaching behaviour (Raya-Castellano et al., 2020). Augmented information is typically delivered concurrently (i.e. during movement performance) or terminally (i.e. after movements) in the form of error correction (Davids et al., 2008) to prescribe footballers '...

Coaches are key socializing agents who influence the sociomoral context. A function of socialization in coaching is the imparting of values and ideology, which guide behavior. English professional football is known for authoritarian and subservient cultures whereby coaches will enforce cultural norms and values, which consequently shape their playe...

While ideas from long-term athlete development (LTAD) models have been adopted and integrated across different sports, issues related to early specialization, such as increased risk of injury and burnout, are still common. Although some benefits may be associated with early sport specialization, sports sampling is purported to be a more effective a...

Research has shown that short points (points of 0–4 shots) are crucial in determining the outcome of elite men’s and women’s grass court tennis matches. However, research has not explored the importance of short points in more detail to inform practice design. This study aimed to establish the prevalence and importance of individual rally lengths w...

In this article we challenge deterministic practices on learning and development, biased towards individual properties of learners (e.g., genetic endowment) and knowledge acquisition (e.g., internal representations). These traditional approaches typically fail to account for environmental influences which may interact in unique ways with relevant p...

Objectives Putting behaviour was examined to explore if age influenced performance and the development of motor and perceptual-cognitive expertise during late adolescence and early adulthood. We also examined if motor control and perceptual-cognitive expertise was related to performance on a representative putting task. Method Twenty elite golfers...

Set pieces in soccer (i.e., free kicks and corners) have been examined in detail and are a common focus for coaches during training and performance preparation. However, limited evidence is available on the impact of throw-ins on soccer performance and if coaches should dedicate time in training towards this specific set piece. Therefore, this rese...

roviding augmented Information (i.e. feedback & instruction) is considered a dominant coaching behaviour, typically delivered concurrently (i.e. during a movement action) or terminally (i.e. after a movement action) in the form of error correction to prescribe footballers with an optimal movement template. Here, we propose a model to prevent footba...

Parkour speed-runs require performers (known as Traceurs) to negotiate obstacles with divergent properties such as angles, inclinations, sizes, surfaces, and textures in the quickest way possible. The quicker the run, the higher the performer is ranked. Performance in Parkour speed-runs may be regulated through Parkour Traceurs’ functional movement...

The theory of Ecological Dynamics proposes that talented performance in sport emerges when an individual continuously adapts to surrounding constraints to develop an increasingly functional relationship with a specific performance environment. Crucial to this relationship is the way in which a talent development environment (conceptualized as an ec...

From the theoretical perspective of ecological dynamics, skilful behaviour in performance contexts like sport and education is predicted on the establishment of a functional relationship between an individual and the environment. The strength of this functional relationship is shaped over time by everyday behaviours, values, and customs (sociocultu...

Nonlinear contemporary coaching approaches are becoming more prominent in academic research, although there is still limited take-up by sports practitioners. Research has investigated why coaches continue to use traditional reproductive pedagogical approaches. However, there is limited understanding of insights and experiences of sports coaches who...

In the current sporting landscape, it is not uncommon for professional sport teams and organizations to employ multidisciplinary sport science support teams. In these teams and organizations, a "head of performance" may manage a number of sub-discipline specialists with the aim of enhancing athlete performance. Despite the best intentions of multid...

Contemporary models of motor learning implicate the value of Parkour-style training as an activity to enrich athletic performance in different sports. We explored Parkour Traceurs’ experiential knowledge on the range of physical, perceptual, psychological and social skills that they perceive to be developed during Parkour practice and performance....

Joint kinetics of the lower limb (hip, knee, ankle, midfoot and metatarsophalangeal joints) were investigated during the acceleration phase of bend sprinting and straight-line sprinting. Within the bend sprinting literature, it is generally accepted that sprint performance on the bend is restricted by moments in the non-sagittal plane preventing th...

A decrease in speed when sprinting on the bend compared with the straight has been attributed to kinetic, kinematic and spatiotemporal modifications. Although maximal speed is dependent on an athlete’s ability to accelerate, there is limited research investigating the acceleration phase of bend sprinting. This study used a lower limb and trunk mark...

The performance characteristics of elite tennis match-play differ depending on court surface. However, the performance characteristics (e.g. aces, first serve points won, forced errors) most associated with success on different surfaces are currently unknown. With three weeks typically separating Roland Garros and Wimbledon, the transition from cla...

This study describes how corner kicks were taken across the 2017/2018 FA Women’s Super League season and assesses the effectiveness of these attacking corner kick strategies. A total of 824 corner kicks were analysed examining delivery type, delivery area and attack organisation on corner kick outcomes. A total of 38 goals were scored (4.6% of corn...

This paper investigated horizontal force production, foot kinematics and metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint push‐off axis use during acceleration in bend (anti‐clockwise) and straight‐line sprinting. It was hypothesised that bend sprinting would cause the left step push‐off to occur about the oblique axis, resulting in a decrease in propulsive force....

This study compared the corner kick strategies employed by the top six and bottom six teams across 120 matches of the 2015/2016 English Premier League Season. In total, 2,303 corner kicks were examined by univariate analyses (individual χ2) and bivariate analyses with contingency tables (χ2 and association measures). Top six teams favoured an outsw...

Traditionally, talented adolescent athletes have been predicted on a fixed set of genetically bestowed properties that are believed to be a valid representation of future performance (Davids, Güllich, Shuttleworth, & Araújo, 2017; Baker, Schorer, & Wattie, 2018). Consequently, talent development programmes have focused on the enrichment of these pr...

Performance analysis and identifying performance characteristics associated with success are of great importance to players and coaches in any sport. However, while large amounts of data are available within elite tennis, very few players employ an analyst or attempt to exploit the data to enhance their performance; this is partly attributable to t...

This study investigated lineout performance between the top and bottom four English Premiership rugby union teams during the 2016/17 season. A season long review was conducted analysing all of the top four (n = 1152) and bottom four teams’ (n = 1124) lineouts. Findings showed the number of tries scored originating from a lineout play for the top fo...

Social, cultural and historical constraints can influence attitudes towards learning, developing, and performing in sport. A recent conceptualisation of these environmental constraints in athlete development pathways is a form of life, which describes the values, beliefs, traditions, customs, and behaviours that contribute to an athlete's developme...

A rapidly developing area of research is focused on the use of virtual reality (VR) systems to enhance athlete performance in sport. The assumption is that, implementation of such technologies will enhance skill acquisition and expedite athlete development. However, application of such technologies for enriching athlete development and performance...

La evidencia sugiere que las versiones modificadas del tenis (ej. LTA mini tennis) inciden positivamente sobre el desarrollo táctico y técnico de los niños. Sin embargo, Fitzpatrick, Davids y Stone (2017) destacaron que el mini tennis puede que sea menos conveniente para que los niños desarrollen su golpe de revés en comparación con el de derecha,...

The purposes of this study were threefold: to explore former rugby league players’ experiences of professional academy environments, to understand their reasons for dropping out of the sport, and to explore their recommendations for optimising future talent development environments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine ex-professiona...

Sprint velocity decreases on the bend when compared with the straight, therefore understanding technique during bend sprinting could have important implications for aiding race performance. Few bend sprinting studies have used optoelectronic cameras to investigate kinematic variables. Limited published evidence regarding the reliability of marker s...

The objective of the study was to explore coaches’ philosophies regarding strength training (repetitive muscle actions against high loads) and the transfer of strength training to sports performance. Thirteen world class coaches and athletes from track cycling, Bicycle Moto-Cross (BMX), sprint kayaking, rowing and athletics sprinting were interview...

The role of task constraints manipulation in pedagogical practice has received considerable attention in recent years, although there has been little focus on the role of socio-cultural constraints on an athlete's development to elite performance. Here, we aim to integrate ideas from a range of scientific sub-disciplines to consider why certain beh...

Manipulation of task constraints have previously been effective in task simplification enhancing skill development. This study examines how manipulation of puck masses affects movement behaviors in skilled and less-skilled ice hockey players during a representative ice hockey task. Fifty participants were separated into a skilled (n = 25) or less-s...

Analyses of talent development in sport have identified that skill can be enhanced through early and continued involvement in donor sports which share affordances (opportunities for action) with a performer's main target sport. Aligning key ideas of the Athletic Skills Model and ecological dynamics theory, we propose how the sport of parkour could...

Algunas versiones modificadas del tenis, como Tennis Play and Stay y Mini Tennis (MT) se implementan en todo el mundo con el fin de influir sobre las conductas y el rendimiento de los niños. Sin embargo, no queda claro cómo las versiones modificadas del tenis dan forma a las conductas durante el juego de partidos. Analizamos 1010 puntos de partido,...

Manipulating task constraints by scaling key features like space and equipment is considered an effective method for enhancing performance development and refining movement patterns in sport. Despite this, it is currently unclear whether scaled manipulation of task constraints would impact emergent movement behaviours in young children, affording l...

Previous studies have investigated how individuals reach an expert level by counting the number of hours engaged in specific practice types. Here we sought to understand and compare the microstructure (e.g. practice tasks undertaken) of these practice hours experienced by elite and sub-elite British rugby league players. Semi-structured interviews...

This study aimed to identify performance indicators that discriminate winning and losing in elite men’s and women’s Rugby Union during the latest World Cup competitions. The knockout stages of the men’s 2015 Rugby World Cup (n = 8) and women’s 2014 Rugby World Cup (n = 8) were compared. Findings suggest that in the men’s game, winning teams kicked...

Abstract: (1) Background: Green physical activity promotes physical health and mental wellbeing and interesting questions concern effects of this information on designing indoor exercise environments. This study examined the physical and emotional effects of different nature-based environments designed for indoor treadmill running; (2) Methods: In...

Coaches of sports requiring maximal effort over a short period of time (<60 s), such as track sprint cycling, sprint kayaking, and sprint running often consider strength training (repetitive muscle actions against high loads) to be a fundamental aspect of an athletes training programme. Despite the common prescription of strength training in elite...

Research has investigated how individuals reach an expert level by examining the number of hours engaged in specific types of practice. Here we compare the microstructure of these practice hours experienced by elite and sub-elite British rugby league players. The purpose was to compare the perceptions of pre-academy elite and sub-elite British rugb...

Dynamic interceptive actions are performed under severe spatial and temporal constraints. Here, behavioral processes underpinning anticipation in one-handed catching were examined using novel technology to implement a spatial and temporal occlusion design. Video footage of an actor throwing a ball was manipulated to create four temporal and five sp...

Understanding how best to accrue benefits from designing physical activity and exercise programmes is needed to tackle global health problems related to physical inactivity and poor mental health. Some studies have implicated an important role for green exercise and physical activity, but there is a lack of clarity in current research. Therefore, m...

The Lawn Tennis Association’s mini tennis (MT) is a modified version of tennis consisting of progressive stages; however, there have been few attempts to evaluate how MT might shape performance behaviours. Here, we examine effects of playing MT on the emergence of children’s match-play behaviours in 48 junior tennis players. Performance in 1010 mat...

Background: Identifying factors that discriminate successful and unsuccessful performance in elite Rugby Union allows coaches to adopt effective tactical strategies for success. Previous research has identified performance indicators that determine success in elite male rugby (Bishop and Barnes 2013), but limited research exists on the female game....

INTRODUCTION: A team's tactical behaviour is often quantified using metrics that relate to player locations at a given time. This spatio-temporal data is easily translated into many metrics that describe the point, line and surface relations of players and the ball over time. This study reviews the spatio-temporal metrics used in invasion game spor...

Increasing evidence supports the multiple benefits to physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing of green physical activity, a topic of increasing interest in the past decade. Research has revealed a synergistic benefit of green physical activity, which includes all aspects of exercise and physical activity in the presence of nature. Our theor...

The role of advanced visual information in ball catching was investigated by integrating video images of action and ball projection technology in four different conditions: Integrated video and ball projection (VBP), Video-Only (VO), Ball Projection-Only (BPO) and Misleading Ball projection (MBP). Hand kinematics and gaze behaviour data were collec...

Advance visual information of a projection action and ball flight information is important for organizing dynamic interceptive actions like catching. However, how the central nervous system (CNS) manages the relationship between advance visual information and emerging ball flight information in regulating behavior is less well understood. Here, we...

Studies of postural coordination during performance of externally-timed interceptive actions, such as catching a ball, have been infrequent, with advanced visual information from a thrower's actions towards a catcher, typically excluded in experimental task constraints. Yet previous research suggests that manipulating participant access to such inf...

Dynamic interceptive actions, such as catching or hitting a ball, are important task vehicles for investigating the complex relationship between cognition, perception, and action in performance environments. Representative experimental designs have become more important recently, highlighting the need for research methods to ensure that the couplin...