Tag Archive for 'LTAD'

The long term athlete development

This short article stems from the need to also acquaint coaches, physical trainers, physicians, and sports psychologists with the guidelines for long-term athlete development and how coaches can guide this process through the stimulation of athletes’ motivation.

Introduction
Sport has experienced incredible development in the past 30 years, manifested through the:

  1. Involvement of millions of young people
  2. Creation of thousands of new sports clubs and practitioners
  3. Increase in scientific production in this field
  4. The search for new and more appropriate training programs for childhood and adolescence
  5. Monetization of youth sports activity
  6. Disappearance of play-sport freely organized by young people
  7. Total dominance of adults in the organization of sports
  8. Increasingly early pursuit of sports talent
  9. Significant presence of parents in the sports training of their children
  10. Diffusion of sports among young people with physical and intellectual disabilities
In spite of this great development in the world of sports, many problems are present that limit the sports development of young people, as well as are the cause of dropout that occurs from the age of 14 and is particularly severe in girls. Existing difficulties in sports have been identified as follows:
  1. Imposition of adult programs on children,
  2. Imposition of male programs on girls,
  3. Coaching programs more based on outcome (winning) rather than process (coaching),
  4. Better coaches are dedicated to competitive and absolute level sports,
  5. Programs do not take into consideration the biological development and mental processes of young people,
  6. The role of parents is poorly defined,
  7. Psychological skills are not integrated into the coaching process,
  8. Early initiation into the practice of only one sport,
  9. Competition among sports organizations to grab young people,
  10. Disinterest in young adolescents who are not interested in competitive activity.

Based on these considerations, it is necessary for sports organizations to engage young people in a sports program that provides them with the opportunity to:

  • develop and maintain permanently over time a physically active lifestyle,
  • develop their sporting potential.

Complementing the practice of sports, one of the most important elements in the development of young people is to provide opportunities and reasons for developing their sense of belonging, not only in regard to the sports club but also to the broader community in which they act on a daily basis and which includes school, parents and friends.

Therefore, the focus must be placed not only on sports development, but also on the realization of that social network of which young people are a part; consisting mostly of adults (parents, teachers and coaches) who do not habitually dialogue with each other except in the most institutional ways.

How too we teach to compete?

Learning to compete is one of the stages of an athlete’s development.

So the question is, “How much time do we spend in training to develop this skill?” but also “How do we use the results of competitions to improve this aspect?”

This is a question that coaches and psychologists must ask themselves if they want to participate effectively in this process of improving the youth they coach.

These are questions that go beyond the technical-tactical learnings and those of the psychological techniques that young people have learned. They may have learned a lot but not be able to put them into practice during a competition.

They may be motivated and relatively confident people, who train with pleasure and effectiveness, have no particular conflicts with their coaches and listen to them … but that is not enough. At the absolute level, there are world champion athletes who have never made it into an Olympic final.

Think about it … then we’ll try to hypothesize answers.

The mental preparation in canoeing

Main topics of workshop held for canoeing coaches about the “The development of the young athletes’s psychological skills.”

 

Courses to understand the athlete development

Long Term Athlete Development promotes sport professional culture and science in sport experts (coach, psychologist, physician, manager).

.Immagine

Mind skills in gymnastic over 14

  • Routine: Total command of the routine, regardless of competitive environment and situation.
  • Recovery: Focus on recovery and regeneration strategies
  • Mental skills: Imagery, concentration, emotional control, positive self-talk and relaxation, self-regulation, adaptive perfectionism and self-confidence
  • Team: Team competitive events bring different pressures, and require development and management of team work skills
  • Media: Managing interviews and media events
  • Training: Managing distractions and interruptions in training, while maintaining peak performance over the long term
  • Coach: Takes a stronger role in decision-making, working in partnership with the coach
  • Ethics: relating to competition and social maturity
  • Life: Balance through outside interests and friends, education
(Source: Adapted from http://www.gymcan.org/uploads/gcg_ltad_en.pdf)

Coach the mindset to have success in sports team

Da tempo le nazionali degli sport di squadra non vincono più e presidenti di federazione e club si accusano vicendevolmente di fare poco per affrontare seriamente questo problema. Al di là di questa lotta sterile che evidenzia paradossalmente la difficoltà a ‘fare squadra’ per un interesse superiore alle singole esigenze, ciò che manca è il sapere come si sviluppa a lungo termine l’atleta. Sappiamo per certo che ci vogliono anni d’investimento, probabilmente almeno 10.000 ore di allenamento dall’inizio della pratica dello sport scelto sino a diventare giocatori esperti e maturi per affrontare eventi di livello internazionale. Abbiamo tanti presunti campioncini che non diventeranno mai giocatori di prima fascia per un eccesso di valutazione positiva quando sono adolescenti mentre i genitori si gratificano pensando di avere scoperto in casa un Totti, solo perché il loro figlio è più bravo dei suoi compagni o nella pallavolo e basket solo perché a 13/14 anni è più alto degli altri e allora ha vita facile a fare i punti. I genitori si entusiasmano, i club li sfruttano e l’anno successivo un altro diventa più bravo di loro e così avanti, il risultato è che si rovina l’autostima dei ragazzi che non sanno a cosa credere: ‘sono bravo oppure no?’.

In Italia la ricerca psicologica in questo ambito non è sviluppata perché difficilmente le squadre mettono a disposizione i loro giocatori per indagare sullo sviluppo psicologico di questi giovani. Non è lo stesso in paesi come il Regno Unito dove molte Football Academy hanno adottato un sistema denominato 5C’s che è un modello per sviluppare le abilità psicologiche (concentrazione, impegno, comunicazione, controllo e fiducia) durante le sessioni di allenamento. Lo stesso vale ad esempio in US per la Little League di Baseball, dove da 40 anno si utilizza sul campo un sistema per monitorare il comportamento dell’allenatore, il Coaching Behavioral Assessment System, che ne permette l’esame e fornisce al tecnico informazioni utili per migliorare professionalmente, tratte direttamente dal suo modo di lavorare con i giovani. Esistono, inoltre, sistemi per il miglioramento della concentrazione nelle abilità di precisione, trasversali a tutti gli sport di squadra come sono i calci di rigore, la battuta nella pallavolo, il tiro libero nel basket e i calci nel rugby, che potrebbero insegnare ai giocatori come affrontare queste situazioni, che dipendono in larga parte solo dalla convinzione che hanno in quel momento di fare nel modo migliore la cosa giusta.  L’utilizzo di questi approcci integrati nell’allenamento determinerebbe un migliore sviluppo dei giovani negli sport, potenziando in loro le competenze psicologiche di base, che saranno certamente utili anche nella vita di tutti i giorni ma che sarebbero di grande sostegno alle loro prestazioni che non sono mai solo tecniche. Rappresentano invece l’espressione massima del giocatore nella sua globalità fisica, tecnico-tattica e psicologica. Senza questo tipo di sviluppo personale e di gruppo sarà sempre difficile, al di là di qualsiasi forma organizzativa venga adottata dagli organismi sportivi, allenare futuri giocatori di successo.

Who is accountable of the long term athlete development?

Confidence is a relevant topic for the psychologists and very often the coaches use it to point out the errors of their athletes are caused by a deficiency in this psychological dimension. Sometimes this explanation is used to hide the coaches’ mistakes but other highlights limits in psychological development.

On this topic we can say a lot. One such example comes from the interationist approach to the study of personality, it explains the behaviors are derived from the relationship between the personality, the situational challenges, the specific skills and expectations of the social environment.

Since the question is so complicated, no one among athletes, coaches and staff, sports organizations and parents can shirk their responsibilities, which determine the athlete long term development.

How many address the issue of poor performances with this vision? How many clubs are organized to meet this need, taking into account these variables?

Youth sport: problems and solutions

Youth sport is becoming a great problem and an article published in the magazine of US Olympic Committee helps to understand what might be the reasons and proposals for solutions. I wrote in a short summary but the  article by Christine M. Brooks (Summer 2016) is certainly wider and interesting to read.

  • There is a high pediatric dropout rate from sports (between 2008 and 2013 there were 2.6 million fewer six to twelve year-old kids participating the six traditional sports).
  • Coaches are using higher training intensities at younger ages than ever before possibly causing long-term harm to young athletes (the LTAD model attempts to guide coaches about the appropriate training for children who are at different maturational phases).
  • There is an increase in childhood obesity and subsequent health problems (in the United States, 17 to 31 percent of children and adolescents are obese).
Goals
  • The principle of enjoyment embraces Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s notion of ‘FLOW,’ that in turn, explains why individuals enjoy an activity. Approximately 40 percent of pediatric athletes in one survey claim they dropped out of sports because they were not having fun. The coaching goal is to train athletes in small, manageable learning steps so they remain in the zone of FLOW. Research indicates that educated coaches lower kids’ anxiety levels and lift their self-esteem.
  • The principle of striving for improvement involves enticing young athletes to constantly strive for the upper limits of their genetic potential while concurrently keeping them in FLOW. If they are out of ‘FLOW,’ it is theoretically impossible to motivate ongoing practice and striving, and therefore progress toward full genetic potential will be blunted.
  • The principle of appropriate training goes hand-in-hand with the child’s growth and maturation. The LTAD model attempts to match structural growth and maturation to the appropriate motor skill complexity and intensity of physical training.
  • The principle of doing no harm is at the basis of coaching. Four million school-age children in the US are injured while playing sports every year. The reason can partly be attributed to stressing a body that has immature balance and coordination beyond its capacity.

Athlete development is a long term process

Do you train to win?

We always talk with the expert athletes and their coaches about the relevance to repeat in the competition as they did in training. Thus the training prepares the athletes to develop and refine the skills necessary to successfully address the sport events. In this stage, the training relates only to a lesser extent on the technique acquisition, because this goal has been carried out in previous stages of the long-term athlete development (LTAD). What it’s then the training to win, following one of the best descriptions of this stage of the athletes’ sport career, by Canadian Sport for Life.

At the Train to Win stage of LTAD, training plans require double, triple or multiple periodization to accommodate the extremely high training volumes. Carefully designed periodization plans allow the high performance athlete to be able to express their full potential on competition day.

General considerations during Train to Win

  • Train athletes to peak for major competitions.
  • Performance outcomes take first priority.
  • Athletes must develop the ability to produce consistent performances on demand.
  • Coaches must ensure that training is characterized by high intensity and high volume.
  • Coaches must allow frequent preventative breaks to prevent physical and mental burnout.
  • Training must utilize periodization plans as the optimal framework of preparation, according to the periodization guidelines of the sport-specific LTAD plan.
  • The training to competition ratio should be adjusted to 25:75, with the competition percentage including competition-specific training activities.
  • Training targets include the maximization and maintenance of all athlete capacities.
  • Athletes must learn to adapt to different environments to perform their best.