Long-Term Athlete Development
in Canada
Higgs, C., Balyi, I., Way, R., Norris, S., Cardinal,
C., Bluechardt, M.
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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

http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5
Long-Term Athlete Development in Canada
Higgs, C., Balyi, I., Way, R., Norris, S., Cardinal, C., Bluechardt,
M.
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