Long Term Athlete Development

 

Watch this Space as FISS is developing it's own sports specific model for consultation and as such you can have your say about the Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model that we implement, as the model within our sport.

 

In today's society issues such as child-hood obesity and the concern for national well being are emphasising the importance of regular sport and exercise among young performers. Indeed, everybody, whether a sport coach, teacher, parent or player has a responsibility in ensuring the long-term athlete development of young athletes.

 

This title is based on the Long-term Athlete development (LTAD) model, developed by Dr Istvan Balyi, focuses on maximising player development to encourage a life long commitment to sports and exercise. It is designed to help prepare players to reach elite development while focusing on the importance of having fun in sport. LTAD provides the athlete with activities to suit each development stage and lays foundations for the future.

 

Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) is a sports development framework that is based on human growth and development.


Dr Istvan Balyi is considered by many to be the world expert on LTAD. He has put a theory forward that suggests that young people follow the same pattern of growth from infancy through adolescence, but there are significant individual differences in both the timing and magnitude of the changes that take place.


Children grow at different rates. Research has shown that that chronological age is not a good indicator on which to base athletic development models for athletes between the ages of 10 to 16 as within this age group there is a wide variation in the physical, cognitive and emotional development.


Dr Balyi believes that a lot of young sporting potential is not being fully realised and to remedy the situation there needs to be a major re-think as to how young people are introduced to sport both from the point of view of practice/training, competition, coaching and the support programme from clubs, parents and volunteers.


Dr Balyi feels there is often a major problem with children under-training and over-competing where sports superimpose adult competition programmes on children. Children are not miniature adults and if their training and development programme is not right during the critical years of 9 to 14, the youngsters will lose interest and getting their interest back into sport will be very difficult.

 

The response has been for Sport England and a number of our National Governing Bodies to write sports specific plans to get this earlier critical period right.


Sports have been classified into EARLY and LATE specialisation sports.

 

EARLY specialisation sports (e.g. diving, figure skating and gymnastics) require early sport specialisation in training.

 

LATE specialisation sports (e.g. tennis, rugby and netball) do not recommend specialisation before the age of ten since it contributes to early burn-out, drop-out and retirement from training and competition.


The belief is that there are essentially four stages to the LTAD model:-


        FUNdamentals

        Training To Train

        Training To Compete

        Training To Win


However, LTAD is not only a elite sports model. It is also designed to introduce young people to sport in a way that encourages participation and promotes sport as an enjoyable, healthy and valuable part of their overall leisure lifestyle.