Long-Term Athlete Development #SpCP13

What is Long-term athlete development? What are the benefits?

Several cases of teachers and coaches are unaware or not fully knowledgable about long-term athlete developlment (LTAD). I beleive it should be educated more thoroughly across the PDHPE sector at school and at sporting organisations. I believe more promotion in the media to society is necessary.

Canadian Sports for Life identifies great information about LTAD.
There are 7 stages of LTAD:
1. Active Start - 0-6 years
2. Fundamental - Girls 6-8 Boys 6-9
3. Learn to train - Girls 8-11 Boys 9-12
4. Train to train - Girls 11-15 Boys 12-16
5. Train to compete - Girls 15-21 Boys 16-23
6. Train to win - Girls 18+ Boys 19+
7. Active for life - all ages

Stages 1, 2, and 3 develop physical literacy before puberty so that children have the basic skills to be active for life. Physical literacy provides the foundation for those who choose to persure elite training in one sport or activity after the age of 12.

Stages 4,5, and 6 provide elite training for those who want to specialise in one sport and compete at the highest level, maximising the physical, mental and emotional development of each athlete.
Stage 7 is about living and active life to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Coaches and teachers need to be aware that to optimize the development of athletes, it is important to include elements of sports science and coaching practices into the 10 key factors of LTAD:

• exellence takes time
• fundamentals
• specialisation
• developmental age
• trainability
• physical, mental, cognitive and emotional development
• periodisation
• competition planning
• system alignment and integration
• continuous improvements

When you search Canadian Sports for life there are great visuals to see to help demonstrate the LTAD structure.

Long-term athlete development includes guidelines for training, competition and recovery based on principles of human development and maturation. This procedure considers the best interest of the athlete and I beleive needs to be highlighted and focused on more in our sporting society today.

Reference:

Canadian Sports for Life. 2013. Long-Term Athlete Development. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.canadiansportforlife.ca/coaches. [Accessed 09 May 13].