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UCJI EN TXT Long Term Athlete Development
UCJI EN TXT Long Term Athlete Development
UCJI EN TXT Long Term Athlete Development
(LTAD)
Factor 1: FUNdamentals
FUNdamental movement skills should be introduced through fun and games.
In order for children to become physically literate, they need to acquire fundamental
movement skills, including running, throwing, catching, hopping, bounding, etc.,
along with fundamental sport skills.
FUNdamental sports skills should follow and include basic overall sports skills, such
as agility, jumping, balance, coordination, speed, climbing, walking, hopping, cycling,
kicking, throwing, hitting and diving.
Factor 2: Specialization
It is advantageous for children to participate in a variety of sports as early as possible.
Early exposure to a wide variety of sport and physical activities will ensure the
development of some of the physical and movement attributes which are crucial to
later success in participation. These include: agility, balance, conditioning, speed,
core body strength, stamina, suppleness and eye-hand-foot coordination.
Late specialization sports: sports when early specialization is not required to achieve
excellence. These sports include cricket, athletics, soccer, rugby, volleyball, combat
and racquet sports.
Developmental and Chronological ages differ most during adolescence. Training and
competition are currently based on chronological age, which means that although
athletes can be in different stages of their growth spurts, we continue to train them
the same way. For example, we often see two 14 year old – one that looks like a 16
year old (early developer) and one that looks like a 12 year old (late developer), yet
they both compete and train in the same age category. Youth who mature early have
a significant biological advantage over their competitors and have traditionally been
selected over late matures at an early age.
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Recommendation: sport programs must find ways to keep late developers in
the sport until they catch up to the early developers.
• Stamina (endurance)
• Strength
• Speed
• Skill
• Suppleness (flexibility)
The “sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training” for stamina, strength and
skills are identified using biological markers (Balyi, 2001) such as the onset of the
adolescent growth spurt, PHV (the fastest rate of growth after growth decelerates),
and the onset of menarche. The trainability of speed and suppleness are based on
chronological age, and the trainability of stamina, strength and skill is based on
developmental age determined by the biological markers. Thus, the biological
markers are used to identify the “windows of optimal trainability for accelerated
adaptation to training.
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Recommendation: coaches need to ensure that they focus on the stage-
appropriate periodization.
LTAD recognizes that physical education, school sports, recreational activities and
competitive sport are interdependent. Enjoying a lifetime of physical activity and
achieving athletic excellence are both built on a foundation of physical literacy and
fitness.
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Factor 10: Continuous Improvement (Kaizen)
LTAD is a dynamic framework that requires continuous adjustments based on key
principles. Continuous monitoring, evaluation and readjustment is needed.
1. Training to Train
2. Training to Compete
3. Training to Win
4. Retirement/Retaining
1. FUNdamental
2. Training to Train
3. Training to Compete
4. Training to Win
5. Retirement/Retaining
Speed, power and endurance are developed by using FUN games. Correct running,
jumping and throwing techniques are taught using the ABCs of athletics.
Strength training during this stage should include exercises using the athlete’s own
body weight, medicine ball and Swiss ball exercises.
Athletes should be introduced to the simple rules and ethics of sports. No periodisation
takes place but all programs are structured and monitored.
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Stage 2: The Training to Train Stage
During the Training to Train stage, young athletes learn how to train, and they also
learn the basic skills of a specific sport. Also, they are introduced to the basic
technical/tactical skills and ancillary capacities including warm-up and cool-down,
stretching, hydration and nutrition, recovery and regeneration, mental preparation,
taper and peak, integrated pre-competition routines and post-competition recovery.
During competitions, athletes play to win and to do their best, but the major focus of
training is on learning the basics as opposed to competing. Training and competition
ratios are optimized because too many competitions waste valuable training time and
conversely, not enough competition inhibits the practice of technical skills and
learning how to cope with the physical and mental challenges presented during
competition.
During the Training to Compete stage, high intensity individual and sport-specific
training is provided to athletes all year round. Athletes, who are now proficient at
performing both basic and sport-specific skills, learn to perform these skills under a
variety of competitive conditions during training. Special emphasis is placed on
optimum preparation by modeling training and competition.
This is the final stage of athletic preparation. All the athlete’s physical, technical,
tactical, mental and ancillary capacities are now fully established, and the focus of
the training has shifted to the optimization of performance. Athletes are trained to
peak at major competitions.
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Training is characterized by high intensity and relatively high volume. Frequent
‘prophylactic’ breaks help to prevent physical and mental burnouts. Training and
competition-specific training/competition ratios are 25:75.
This stage refers to the activities performed after an athlete has retired from
competition permanently. During this final stage, ex-athletes move into sport-related
careers that may include coaching, officiating, sport administration, small business
enterprises, master’s competition and the media.
Suggested readings:
• https://sportforlife.ca/quality-sport/long-term-athlete-development/
• Balyi, István: Coaching for Long-Term Athlete Development: To improve participation and
performance in sport. The National Coaching Foundation, 2005.
• Bompa, TO: Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training. Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics. 1999
• Canadian Sport for Life – Long-Term Athlete Development Resource Paper 2.0. Published
by Canadian Sport Institute – Pacific 2014
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