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Long-Term Athlete Development describes how to systematically develop sporting excellence and increase active participation in local, regional, and national sport organizations. This resource describes the long-term athlete development (LTAD) model, an approach to athlete-centered sport that combines skill instruction with long-term planning and an understanding of human development. By learning about LTAD, sport administrators and coaches will gain the knowledge and tools to enhance participation and improve performance and growth of athletes.
This text offers the first in-depth and practical explanation of the LTAD model. Long-Term Athlete Development integrates current research on talent development and assessment into practice to help sport leaders plan athletic development across the life span or design detailed programs for a particular group, including those with physical and cognitive disabilities. Authors Balyi, Way, and Higgs—pioneers and veteran LTAD facilitators—critique current talent development models, discuss the limitations of the LTAD model, and demonstrate the benefits of LTAD as a new approach. By integrating knowledge of these models, readers are able to analyze their own programs and take steps to improve sport and coaching philosophies and reach adherence and performance goals.
Explanations and visuals of concepts help readers understand the state of knowledge in talent identification and long-term athlete development. Chapter-opening vignettes offer examples of how the LTAD model can be used to alleviate common issues. Listings at the end of each chapter offer sources for further study, and reflection questions guide readers in applying the content. The text offers a logical presentation of current research:
• Key factors that guide and shape the LTAD model, such as physical literacy, the differences between early- and late-specialization sports, and variations in trainability across the life span
• Information on the time needed to develop excellence in sport and how periodization of training is related to the developmental stage of the athlete
• The seven stages of LTAD, from development of fundamental movement skills to training for elite competition and the transition to lifelong physical activity
• Considerations in the development of optimal programs for participants passing through each of the seven stages
Long-Term Athlete Development is an essential guide to improving the quality of sport, developing high-performance athletes, and creating healthy, active citizens. It offers parents, coaches, and sport administrators a deeper understanding of the LTAD model, helping them create an enjoyable, developmentally appropriate environment for both competitive athletes and enthusiastic participants.
Part I. Introduction to Long-Term Athlete Development
Chapter 1. Long-Term Athlete Deveopment Model
Beginnings of LTAD
LTAD Model Explained
Sport for Life Philosophy
Framework for Working Together
Guide for Participating in Sport and Physical Activity
Tool for Change
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 2. Athletes With Disabilities
Sport for People With Disabilities
LTAD Stages for Athletes With Disabilities
Special Considerations
Supporting Athletes With Disabilities
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Part II. Key Factors in Long-Term Athlete Development
Chapter 3. Physical Literacy
Physical Literacy Definitions
Physical Literacy Development in Children
Appropriate Skill Development in Children
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 4. Specialization
Specialization Defined
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Optimal Time to Specialize
Specialization Groups
Sport-Specific Specialization Athlete Development Models
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 5. Age
Age Categories
Relative Age
Developmental Age
Measuring and Monitoring Growth
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 6. Trainability
Sensitive Periods of Trainability
Trainability of Stamina
Trainability of Strength
Trainability of Speed
Trainability of Skill
Trainability of Suppleness
Training and Competition During Puberty
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 7. Intellectual, Emotional, and Moral Development
Capacities
Interplay of Intellectual, Emotional and Moral Development
Physical Development
Intellectual Development
Emotional Development
Moral Development
Influence of Intellectual, Emotional, and Moral Development on LTAD
Learning Styles
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 8. Excellence Takes Time
Importance of Practice in Excellence
Importance of Multisport Participation and Free Play
Importance of the Physical, Cognitive, and Emotional Domains to Excellence
Perils of Premature Selection
Keys to Achieving Necessary Training Hours
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 9. Periodization
Periodization and LTAD
Components of Periodization
10-Step Approach to Creating an Annual Plan
Implementing the 10 Steps of an Annual Cycle
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 10. Competition
Competition and LTAD
Issues in Competition
Making Good Decisions
Training-to-Competition Ratios Through the Stages
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 11. Sport System Alignment and Integration
System Alignment From an Individual Perspective
System Alignment From a Sport Organization Perspective
System Alignment From a Sector Perspective
LTAD and S4L Implications for Policy Development
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 12. Continuous Improvement
Technology Changes
Paradigm Changes
Influencing Change
Actions for Continuous Improvement
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Part III. Stages of Long-Term Athlete Development
Chapter 13. Active Start
Active Start Importance
Physical Activity and the Brain
Critical and Sensitive Periods
Maturity and Body Movements
Appropriate Activities and Programs
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 14. Fundamentals
Evolution of Skills
Fundamental Movement Skills
Locomotor Skills in Varied Environments
Attaining All of the Fundamental Movement Skills
Learning and Teaching Fundamental Movement Skills
Key Training and Performance Characteristics
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 15. Learn to Train
Learn to Train Basics
Key Training and Performance Characteristics
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 16. Train to Train
Train to Train Basics
Key Training and Performance Characteristics
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Chapter 17. Train to Compete
Train to Compete Basics
Key Training and Performance Characteristics
Summary
Questions for Reflection
Summary
To Learn More
Chapter 18. Train to Win
Train to Win Basics
Key Training and Performance Characteristics
Summary
Questions for Reflection
Summary
To Learn More
Chapter 19. Active for Life
Active for Life Basics
Importance of Active for Life
Competitive for Life Basics
Fit for Life Basics
Sport and Physical Activity Leaders
Summary
Questions for Reflection
References
To Learn More
Istvan Balyi, MA, is a sport consultant and expert in Canadian Sport for Life and long-term athlete development. Balyi has served as a sport scientist in residence at the National Coaching Institute in Victoria, British Columbia, and remains involved in the program delivery of planning and periodization and LTAD.
As one of the architects of the long-term athlete development model, Balyi has served as an LTAD advisor for 50 sports in 7 countries and facilitated the use of LTAD for more than 20 countries. Balyi has worked with 17 Canadian national teams as a high-performance consultant and been responsible for athletic development planning and periodization for multiple Olympic medalists. In addition, Balyi has taught planning, periodization, and LTAD modules in Australia, Bahrain, Chile, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, the United Sates, the Netherlands, and Wales.
Balyi resides in Victoria, British Columbia, where he enjoys reading, listening to music, and cooking.
Richard Way, MBA, is Canadian Sport for Life’s Senior Leader and is an expert on long-term athlete development. He is also a principal of Citius Performance Corporation and serves on the faculty of the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Delaware.
Way developed the LTAD model along with Istvan Balyi and has served as a long-term athlete development advisor for 30 sports in 4 countries. He has also facilitated the use of LTAD in over 50 countries.
As a chartered professional coach, Way represented Canada as a luge racer and coach for over 10 years. Way holds a Medal of Honor for Exceptional Contributions to the Development of the International Luge Sport awarded by the Federation Internationale de Luge de Course (FIL). He received his advanced diploma in coaching in 2005 from the National Coaching Institute.
Way is president of the International Sport for Life Society. He was also the director of sport for Vancouver’s successful 2010 Bid Corporation. Way enjoys spending time with his children in community sports, traveling, and playing soccer and hockey. He resides in Victoria, British Columbia.
Colin Higgs, PhD, is a sport consultant and expert in long-term athlete development. He has worked with many national governments and nongovernmental sport and disability sport organizations in North America, the Caribbean, southern Africa, and central Asia.
As a consultant, Higgs is currently involved in the redevelopment of the Caribbean Coaching Certification Program and the design, development, and implementation of a youth sport program in the Caribbean to reduce the incidence and impact of HIV/ AIDS. Higgs is working to transform the Canadian sport system with the goals of decreased negative medical consequences of physical inactivity and increased international sport performance for Canada’s athletes.
Higgs is a frequent presenter at international conferences and has authored more than 60 publications on physical literary, long-term athlete development, and coaching with special emphasis on individuals with disabilities.
In 2013 Higgs was the inaugural recipient of the International Paralympic Committee’s Sport Science Awards and also received the Queen’s 60th Jubilee Medal for community service to Canada in support of reeducing physical inactivity. He is a professor emeritus at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. Higgs resides in Sydenham, Ontario, Canada.
“An indispensable guide for any coach or parent concerned with making sport healthier and more ethical. This book brings fresh ideas to the practice of sport and truly represents thinking outside the box. As human beings, we only have one body so we need to treat it well. Too many athletes leave sport with long-term injuries and a record of underperformance. The ideas in this book can change that and allow everyone in sport to get the most out of talents and ambitions.”
Jim Denison -- Professor, University of Alberta, Director, Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre
“The authors show that programs of sport and wellness can be complementary, not mutually exclusive. Thus, long-term athlete development is consistent with the goals of North American initiatives—Sport Canada, the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition.”
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
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Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
Learn more about Long-Term Athlete Development.
Late specialization is recommended for most sports
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis.
Specialization Defined
Hill (as cited in Hill & Simons, 1989) described specialization as athletes limiting participation to a single sport, which they train for and compete in on a year-round basis. Baker, Cobley, and Fraser-Thomas (2009) used four parameters to define early specialization:
- Early start age in sport
- Early involvement in one sport (as opposed to participating in several sports)
- Early involvement in focused, high-intensity training
- Early involvement in competitive sport
Balyi, Cardinal, Higgs, Norris, and Way (2005) introduced the notion of early or late specialization sports. Early specialization sports (mostly acrobatic and artistic sports such as diving, figure skating, and gymnastics) are defined as sports in which early sport-specific training (by ages 5 to 7) is necessary for future excellence. In these sports, complex movement and sport skills should be acquired before the onset of the adolescent growth spurt (or peak height velocity, or PHV), which is approximately 12 years of age for females and 14 years of age for males. Because one cannot specialize late in early specialization sports, some of the negative consequences of early specialization are unavoidable, although they are manageable. Late specialization sports are practically all other sports, including team sports, racket sports, combative sports, and gliding sports. Late specialization refers to the idea that early specialization is not warranted, and that specializing early in late specialization sports has its own negative consequences (see the next section).
Côté, Lidor, and Hackfort (2009) argued that early diversification (multisport or multilateral involvement in the LTAD jargon) enhances athlete development, whereas early specialization hinders it. They identified the following seven postulates about youth sport activities:
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite participation in sports in which peak performance is reached after maturation.
- Early diversification is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification results in participation in a range of contexts that promote positive youth development.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years promotes intrinsic regulation and builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in enjoyable activities.
- A lot of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sports of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (about age 13), children should have the opportunity either to specialize in their favorite sport or to continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (around age 16) have developed the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills needed for investing their efforts into highly specialized training in one sport.
Negative Consequences of Specializing Too Early
Although focusing on one sport develops the skills, coordination, and sport-specific fitness necessary for doing well in that sport in the short term, it limits or prevents the development of other transferable sport skills (see the chapter 3 opening vignette). Transferable skills allow athletes to participate in a variety of sporting and social situations, which increases the likelihood that they will have a positive and fun experience in sport. Consequently, it is beneficial for young athletes to participate in various sports and to meet and interact with a number of coaches.
Some of the negative consequences of specializing in one sport too early are overuse injuries (DiFiori, 2002) and chronic injuries such as tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, stress fractures, and ACL injuries, especially in female athletes (Harber, 2007). Early specialization also contributes to a one-dimensional self-concept as a result of “a constrained set of life-experiences” (Coakley, 2000, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 133).
To become positive and productive, athletes need to develop the social and mental skills that allow them to adapt to various situations outside of their sporting community. Young athletes may put too much of their selves into one sport and then feel devastated when they fail. They may become obsessed with winning and grow especially frustrated when they do not win. This can lead to an imbalanced lifestyle as they abandon their social lives, spend all of their time training, and deny themselves the opportunity to build the mental and social skills needed for living a successful life away from the playing field (Coakley, as cited in Hill, 2009).
Specialization in one sport contributes to “the progressive loss of freedom in exchange for increased excellence and precision” (Novak, 1976, as cited in Hill, 2009, p. 108). Athletes face not only demands from themselves and their coaches to win, but also intense pressure from their parents.
Consistent training and specialization in a sport can lead to psychological burnout (Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996). Among school, sport, and the basic demands of life, athletes' schedules may allow little time for socializing with friends and other recreational activities. When their schedules become too busy, athletes can feel as though they no longer have any control over their lives. Symptoms such as depression, eating disorders, and chronic fatigue may manifest.
Ironically, the initial intention of creating an exceptional athlete can result in hindered development and increase the likelihood of that athlete dropping out as a result of anxiety from the extreme pressure to win.
Positive Effects of Specialization at the Optimal Time
Athletes who experience a relaxed and fun approach emerge more balanced and well rounded than those who do not. This increases their chances of reaching elite levels in their sports. Youth who try a number of sports and specialize at older ages reach higher performance levels than those who specialize early. Such athletes are less likely to burn out and do not develop the perfectionist attitudes that often come with early specialization. They develop better movement patterns and decision-making skills because they are involved in a range of activities that require a variety of cognitive and physical functions. Being in various sport situations also keeps them mentally fresh and open-minded. The more sports youth practice at young ages, the greater ease they feel when eventually selecting one sport that suits their mental makeup and body composition. If they choose to specialize, they will know the sport in which they will excel.
Participating in a variety of sports also allows athletes to become more athletically diverse and adaptable. For example, a basketball player may be a good center, but if he spends all of his time training for this specific position and fails to win this position on a new team, he is left with limited skills to apply to other positions. This dramatically decreases the chance that he will be able to get a position on the team. Such an experience can be emotionally rough on youth, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the sport. Young athletes may end up dropping sport permanently and settling for a sedentary lifestyle because it is emotionally easier. However, if young athletes have the chance to try a number of sports and experience various positions within those sports, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they choose to specialize. This, in turn, helps ensure that they remain active for life.
When children are between the ages of 6 and 12, parents are responsible for getting them involved in a variety of sports and activities. Côté (1999) refers to this important period as the sampling years. Sampling various sports and activities gives young athletes the opportunity to develop their fundamental movement skills and experience a variety of environments. After this period of diversity and skill development come the specializing years, when the athlete begins to focus on one or two sport activities.
Baker, Côté, and Abernethy's (2003) research further described the importance of sport sampling in youth. Their findings demonstrated a positive correlation between an increase in sports sampled as a youth and the chances of succeeding and becoming an elite athlete. This is most likely because young athletes who sample sports acquire a broader range of movement and decision-making skills, and this contributes to their success later in life. Baker and colleagues' evidence also showed that to reach excellence and elite levels in a sport, single-sport training is not the vital factor in determining success; developing physical literacy and specializing late is. When sport-specific training begins too early, athletes have less success in their sporting careers. Consequently, late specialization is encouraged.
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LTAD model encourages lifelong physical activity for children
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids.
Sport for Life Philosophy
The LTAD model and philosophy acknowledge first that physical education, school sports, competitive sports, and recreational activities are mutually interdependent and contribute to the development of healthy, active kids. Traditionally, physical education in schools, recreational sports, and elite sports have all been developed separately. This approach is ineffective and expensive. It fails to ensure that all children, including those who may have the potential to become elite athletes, are given a solid foundation and knowledge base—physical, technical, tactical, and mental—on which to build their athletic abilities. LTAD is an inclusive model that encourages children to get involved in lifelong physical activity by connecting and integrating school physical education programs with elite sport club programs and recreational sport programs in the community. Through its holistic approach, LTAD considers physiological, psychological, and social development so each athlete develops as a complete person.
Also, although not typical in most parts of the world, sports in North America have traditionally operated independently from one another, as well as from schools and community (city) programs. Consequently, sport systems are riddled with an “us versus them” mentality. This individualistic and oppositional approach results in organizations and coaches competing for good players instead of helping these players develop fundamental movement and sport skills and preparing them for the sport that best suits them. The current approach in North America is often not in the best interest of athletes and contradicts the successful sport systems of other nations, where sport organizations and coaches work together to fully develop athletes for high-performance achievement and long-term participation.
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Age categories should be considered when designing sport programs
The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
Age Categories
Although growth and development are natural processes, the tempo of the maturation process can vary greatly: “A child with a chronological age of 12 years may possess a biological age between nine and fifteen years” (Borms, 1986, p. 5). The biological differences between a 9-year-old and a 15-year-old are huge, and yet in spite of these biological differences, athletes of the same chronological age are often trained the same way at every age and participate in age group competitions.
When designing a training, competition, and recovery program for an athlete, a coach must take into consideration the age of the athlete. However, other factors that must be taken into consideration require more than just checking the athlete's date of birth. Following are age categories that coaches need to consider when designing sport programs:
- Chronological age refers to the number of years and days that have elapsed since birth. Children of the same chronological age can differ by several years in their level of biological maturation.
- Skeletal age refers to the maturity of the skeleton, which is determined by the degree of ossification of the bone structure. It takes into consideration how far bones have progressed, in size and density, toward maturity.
- Relative age refers to the age variation among children in the same age group, resulting from their different birth dates. Thus, if a grade 1 class is composed of children who will turn 6 years old between September 1 of the school year and August 31 of the following year, then the children with September birth dates will have an approximate one-year relative age advantage over the children born in August of the following year. Conversely, the children with August birth dates will have about a one-year developmental disadvantage relative to their September-born peers. Therefore, the 5 1/2-year-old child going to school with 6 1/2 -year-olds has an 18 percent maturational disadvantage. The relationship of relative age to a variety of performance indicators has been the subject of a number of research reports (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985; Morris & Nevill, 2006). A participant who is 18 percent smarter, faster, bigger, and stronger than another has a significant advantage in sport.
- Developmental age refers to the degree of physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Physical developmental age can be determined by skeletal maturity or bone age. Mental, cognitive, and emotional maturity are then considered to determine developmental age.
- General training age refers to the number of years the person has spent in training and participating in various sports.
- Sport-specific training age refers to the number of years that an athlete has specialized in one particular sport.
With the exception of relative age and developmental age, age definitions and concepts are simple and straightforward. For this reason, this chapter focuses on relative age and developmental age.
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Long-term athlete development follows seven stages
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages.
To implement the LTAD model, people must fully understand the seven stages. Administrators, coaches, and parents should also remember that moving from one stage to another is based on the athlete's development and not just chronological age; however, chronological age can be used as a guide. Some stages also identify a developmental age. For example, the beginning of the growth spurt identifies a specific developmental age, which occurs at widely varying chronological ages. Males and females develop at different rates, and their ages differ through the stages. LTAD, therefore, requires the identification of early, average, and late maturers to design training and competition programs that match athletes' trainability and readiness.
The number of stages changes slightly between early specialization and late specialization sports, and early specialization sports have unique requirements that affect the definition of their LTAD stages. The basic seven-stage LTAD pathway is covered in this part of the book.
- Active Start. Until age 6, it is all about play and mastering basic movement skills! Children should be able to have fun with physical activity through both structured and unstructured free play that incorporates a variety of body movements. An early active start enhances the development of brain function, coordination, social skills, gross motor skills, emotions, and imagination. It also helps children build confidence, develop posture and balance, build strong bones and muscles, achieve a healthy weight, reduce stress, sleep well, move skillfully, and enjoy being
active. - FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 in boys and 6 to 8 in girls, children should participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop fundamental movement skills and overall motor skills including agility, balance, and coordination. However, activities and programs must maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should be only minimally introduced.
- Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 in girls and 9 to 12 in boys, or until the onset of the growth spurt, children are ready to begin developing foundational sport skills. The emphasis should be on acquiring a wide range of skills necessary for a number of sporting activities. Although it is often tempting to overdevelop “talent” at this age through excessive single-sport training and competition (as well as early positioning in team sports), this can have a negative effect on later stages of development if the child pursues a late specialization sport. This early specialization promotes one-sided physical, technical, and tactical development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
- Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 for girls and 12 to 16 for boys. This is the stage at which people are physiologically responsive to stimuli and training; in other words, the time to start “building the engine” and exploiting the sensitive periods of accelerated adaptation to training (see chapter 6). Children should establish an aerobic base, develop speed and strength toward the end of the stage, and further consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. These youths may play and do their best to win, but they still need to spend more time on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win (process vs. outcome). Concentrating on the process as opposed to the result of a competition leads to better development. This approach is critical to developing top performers and maintaining activity in the long term, so parents should check with their national organizations to ensure that their children's programs have the correct training-to-competition ratio.
- Train to Compete. This stage is about optimizing the engine and teaching participants how to compete. They can either choose to specialize in one sport and pursue a competitive stream, or continue participating at a recreational level and thereby enter the Active for Life stage. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.
- Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage to pursue the most intense training suitable for international winning performances. Athletes with disabilities and able-bodied athletes alike require world-class training methods, equipment, and facilities that meet their personal demands and the demands of the sport.
- Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. If children have been correctly introduced to activity and sport throughout the Active Start, FUNdamentals, and Learn to Train stages, they will have the necessary motor skills and confidence to remain active for life in virtually any sport they choose. For high-performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity. They may decide to continue playing sport, thus being competitive for life, or they may become involved in the sport as game officials or coaches. They might also try new sports and activities (e.g., a hockey player taking up golf or a tennis player starting to cycle), thus being fit for life.
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