Current Issues
No.47
May 2006
 
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Long-Term Athlete Development in Canada
Higgs, C., Balyi, I., Way, R., Norris, S., Cardinal, C., Bluechardt, M.
 

In 2004, Canada began a major project to re-invigorate its national sport system. This new approach was undertaken in response to concerns about Canada’s growing obesity epidemic particularly among children, concern over the imposition of adult training methods on children, and about the perceived failure of Canadian athletes at international sporting events,
Under the direction of Sport Canada the Canadian Sports Centre –Vancouver and Pacific Sport were given the monumental task of transforming the Canadian Sport system and took an innovative approach to this challenge. A five-person (now six-person) Expert Group was established to lead the transformation. In outline the Expert Group’s approach was:
  • To create a new generic long-term athlete development (LTAD) model for able bodied athletes.
  • To create a supplement to the LTAD model that addressed the additional needs of athletes with intellectual or physical disability.
  • To work with individual National Sport Organizations (NSOs) to adapt the generic model to meet sport specific needs.
  • Following the development of their sport-specific LTAD model, the sports then established and published their development plans for adoption across the country.
It should be noted that the development of a sport specific LTAD model is a difficult task, since it required close examination of ALL aspects of sport development and the complete re-thinking of almost all aspects of sport programming. To better understand the process a sport needs to go through, a brief description of the Canadian Long-Term Athlete Development Model might be useful. For those who are interested, the document “Canadian Sport for Life” which describes the Canadian LTAD model is available on-line at www.ltad.ca in both English and French.

The Canadian LTAD Model
The core concept of the Canadian LTAD model (Figure 1) is that it recognizes that better athletic performance, and a greater percentage of the population engaged in health promoting physical activity, are both outcomes of a well developed sport development system.
Within the system there are stages that athletes pass through, and although they all pass through those stages, they do so at different ages depending on how advanced or delayed they are in their passage through adolescence.

The current sport system
Several problems have been identified with the existing Canadian sport system, and these problems are known to be widespread in North America and Europe. Those problems include:
  • Over-competition and under-training. Too much emphasis placed on competition, and not enough emphasis placed on learning skills and the physical/fitness development of the athlete.
  • Adult training and competition programs superimposed on children. Little consideration is given to the differences between adults and children in their capacity for work, and their physical development. More explicitly, adult MALE training and competition schedules are often imposed on male and female children.
  • “Peaking by Friday.” This term is used to describe the phenomenon in which coaches of athletes use the current skills and attributes of their athletes to optimize their competitive advantage without consideration of the long-term impact of these actions. For example: If a coach of an Under-12 basketball team has a very early developing athlete who is very tall, they use that athlete around the basket to score points. This frequently means that the athlete does not develop the skills to bring the ball up court, make strategic long-passes, and other transition skills. By late adolescence when other athletes have also gone through their growth spurt, that same athlete may no longer be the tallest athlete on their team, and will have been replaced by a taller athlete in the role they once played. Without having the opportunity to have learned other skills earlier in their career, the early developer may no longer be competitive.
  • Chronological rather than developmental age is used in training. It is well known that children go through their adolescent growth spurt at different times and yet the majority of sports, and coaches treat every child as though they were the same age. This tends to under-train early developers and over-train late developers during the critical early years of adolescence.
  • Missing the ‘windows’ of accelerated adaptation. Modern research has shown that there are “windows” of optimum trainability (Figure 2) that occur before, during and after the adolescent growth spurt. Few coaches are aware of these windows of opportunity, and as a result athletes do not reach their full potential.
  • Physical literacy not taught – only single sporting activities are taught by most sports, and this limits the ability of athletes to switch between sports at a later stage of development.
  • Knowledgeable coaches tend to work with elite athletes, and this often means that an athlete’s first introduction to a sport comes from poorly qualified coaches. Poor early skill development is often the consequence.
  • Parents are not educated about LTAD, and like some coaches look for early success (measured by winning) rather than optimum development of their child.
  • The needs of athletes with a disability are not well understood, and they are often marginalized from the sport experience, particularly during their early years.
  • Most sport systems have no talent identification system, and no systematic way of encouraging athletes to try sports for which they might be very well suited.
  • There is no system integration, and this often means that school, community and competitive streams of competition have conflicting schedules, and, often, different rules for play.


Stages of LTAD
To overcome these problems within the current Canadian sport system, Canadian LTAD has identified a seven-stage long-term athlete development model (Figure 1). The seven stages are briefly described below:


1. Active Start Stage (Ages birth to 6 years)
  • During the first few years of life, children need to be exposed to a wide range of activities that are a fun part of daily life, and learn the proper execution of movement skills such as running, jumping , kicking, throwing and catching.
  • Children should not be sedentary for the than 60 minutes at a time, except when sleeping.
  • Children need to play in a well structured physical environment that provides them many opportunities to explore their movement potential.
2. FUNdamentals Stage(Males 6-9, Females 6-8)
  • Critical time to learn fundamental movement skills in activities that encourage fun and participation.
  • Important time to learn agility, balance, coordination and speed of movement
  • Critically important time to learn the ABCs of athletics – running, jumping and throwing (and for wheelchair users wheeling).
  • Develop strength through the use of their own body weight in exercises.
  • Right time to introduce the simple rules of sport and introduce ethical behavioral expectations.
  • Daily physical activity is necessary and athletes need to be encouraged to try sports for which they appear well suited.
3. Learning to Train Stage (Males 9-12, Females 8-11)
  • This is a time to develop overall sport skills. All basic sport skills should be learned before the athlete enters the next stage of development.
  • There should be an integrated approach developing the athlete mentally, cognitively and emotionally.
  • This is the stage at which mental preparation for sport should be introduced.
  • Strength development should focus on using the athlete’s own body weight, on medicine balls and Swiss balls.
  • Ancillary services such as nutrition, sport medicine, physiotherapy etc. start to become important.
  • This is a period during which talent identification can make a useful contribution.
  • During the sport year, athletes can handle only single or double periodization.
  • By now, athletes should be engaged in sport specific training approximately 3 times per week, and participate in other sports 3 times per week.
Physical Literacy: The combined first three stages
Physical Literacy is the combination of having learned fundamental movement skills and overall sport skills, and it critical for the later optimum development of both the competitive athlete and the individual who remains active throughout life.

4. Training to Train Stage (Males 12-16, Females 11-15)
  • This is a period of sport specific skill development, and a stage at which major fitness development takes place particularly for strength and aerobic capacity. Fitness training needs to be linked to the timing of the athletes adolescent growth spurt. Free weights can be safely introduced at this stage.
  • Mental preparation becomes more important, as does taking into account the mental, cognitive and emotional development of the athlete.
  • Ancillary supports such as nutritional counseling, strength and conditioning expertise, sport medicine etc. start to become important.
  • Coaches need to track the growth of their athletes with care during this stage to ensure that windows of optimum trainability are not missed.
  • Athletes can handle single or double season periodization, and should be engaged in sport specific training 6-9 times per week, although this should also include complementary sports.
5. Training to Compete Stage (Males 16-23 +/-, Females 15-21 +/-)
  • By this stage athletes should be engaging in sport, event and even position-specific physical conditioning, and equally specific technical and tactical preparation, and should be practicing playing skills under competition conditions.
  • Advanced mental preparation is critical.
  • Need to use a wide range of ancillary expertise – optimum nutrition, physiotherapy, strength and conditioning etc. etc. Career and education counseling becomes important.
  • This is a period of extreme specialization, and the athlete can handle single, double or triple periodization, with planned peaking at critical competitions.
  • Sport specific technical, tactical and fitness training 9-12 times per week.
6. Training to Win Stage (Males 19+/-, Females 18+/-
  • Ages of optimum performance are sport specific and based on international normative data.
  • This is a time to maintain or improve physical capacity, and refine sport specific technical, tactical and strategic abilities, with a focus on technical, tactical and playing skills.
  • All aspects of training and preparations should model competitive expectations.
  • The athlete needs frequent breaks from training and competition to maintain heath – overtraining at this stage is a frequent problem.
  • Athletes at this stage need full access to a wide range of ancillary services and supports.
  • Major focus on “Peaking” for major events, with single, double or multiple periodization.
  • Sport specific technical, tactical and fitness training 9-15 times per week.
7. Active for Life Stage(At any age)
  • Minimum of 60 minutes of moderate daily living activities (such as walking), or 30 minutes of intense activity for adults – more frequent burst of activity for shorter duration for children.
  • Transfer from one sport to another, and engagement in a number of different sports usually playing/taking part in age-group competitions.
  • Remain engaged with sport as a career or as a volunteer: as coach, administrator, etc.
  • It must be remembered that there is a MUCH better chance of a person being Active for Life if they have developed physical literacy before the Training to Train stage.
The implementation Process
In Canada, the Government agency responsible for sport – Sport Canada, through one of the Canadian Sport Centres has contracted six “LTAD-Experts” who work with individual sports and help them through the process of developing their Long-Term Athlete Development plans. Sport Canada has also provided funds to the individual sports to allow them to bring together their most vibrant thinkers to create a new vision for their sport. This process requires rethinking ALL aspects of sport including the three most difficult tasks of changing:
  • Coach education: To ensure that coaches are working in developmentally appropriate ways.
  • Competition schedules: To ensure the appropriate ratio of training to competition at all ages.
  • Parental expectations: To help parents support coaches in focusing on long-term development – even when this means less short-term success.
International Implications
While this description is of the Canadian approach to LTAD, it should be noted that the move to long-term development plans is a broadly international phenomenon being implemented in several countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia. It has arisen from the damage done to many athletes from over-specialization at too early an age in a single sport. This focus on early specialization is often seen as the route to success by coaches in developing countries – and while it may well lead to EARLY success in a particular sport, it hampers the athlete from reaching their full – later – potential, with consequent overuse injuries, burn-out, and early retirement from a career that might have achieved greatness.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Colin Higgs
Memorial University of Newfoundland
School of Human Kinetics and Recreation
Elizabeth Avenue
A1C 5S7 St. John's
Newfoundland
Canada
chiggsconsulting@mac.com





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