Long Term Athlete Development

• From ages 0-6 years, children need to be introduced to unstructured active play that incorporates a variety of body movements. Children this age need to develop the ABCs of movement – Agility, Balance, Coordination and Speed.
• The ABCs are essential for developing fundamental movement skills, and fundamental movement skills will later provide the foundation for fundamental sport skills. Together, fundamental movement skills and fundamental sport skills form the basis of physical literacy.
• An early active start enhances development of brain function, physical coordination, gross motor skills, and posture and balance. An active start also helps children to build confidence, social skills, emotional control, and imagination while reducing stress and improving sleep.
• Children in the Active Start stage should see physical activity as a fun and exciting part of everyday life.

• During the FUNdamental stage (females 6-8, males 6-9), children should develop fundamental movement skills, including the ABCs of Agility, Balance, Coordination and Speed. Children should participate in a fun and challenging multi-sport environment.
• Early elementary school age children need to participate in a variety of well-structured activities that develop basic skills. However, activities and programs need to maintain a focus on fun, and formal competition should only be minimally introduced.
• Children should be exposed to a variety of sports and physical activities throughout the year, developing their interests and motivation while avoiding the danger of burnout through premature specialization.
• Learning fundamental movement skills throughout this stage is a key to the overall development of physical literacy. The ABCs of Agility, Balance, Coordination and Speed are foundation blocks for developing fundamental movement skills.

• During the Learn to Train stage (females 8-11, males 9-12), children should be converting their fundamental movement skills into fundamental sport skills. This stage is “The Golden Age of Learning” for specific sport skills.
• Children in the Learn to Train stage are ready to begin training according to more formalized methods. However, the emphasis should still be on general sports skills suitable to a number of activities.
• As well, a greater amount of time should be spent training and practicing skills than competing.
• It may be tempting to specialize at this age through excessive single sport training or early position specialization in team sports. This should be avoided in most sports.
• Inappropriate or premature specialization can be detrimental to later stages of athlete development if the child is playing a late specialization sport. Premature specialization promotes one-sided development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout.
• There are a few sports that are recognized as early-specialization sports, such as gymnastics, figure skating, and diving. It is appropriate to provide more training hours and concentrated focus in these activities.

• During the Train to Train stage (females 11-15, males 12-16), young athletes need to build an aerobic base and consolidate their sport- specific skills.
• Towards the end of the stage, they need to focus on strength and the anaerobic alactic energy system. Increased training hours are needed at this stage to develop each athlete’s long-term potential.
• The ages that define the Train to Train stage are based on the approximate onset and end of the adolescent growth spurt. This period is generally defined as ages 11 to 15 years for females and 12 to 16 years for males.
• At this stage, athletes are ready to consolidate their basic sport-specific skills and tactics. It is also a major fitness development stage.
• The Train to Train stage makes or breaks the athlete. Athletes may exhibit special talent, play to win, and do their best, but they still need to allocate more time to training skills and physical capacities than competing in formal settings. To maximize their long-term potential, winning should remain a secondary emphasis.
• This approach is critical to the long-term development of top performers and lifelong participants.
• To ensure their program is following the correct training-to-competition ratio, along with other guidelines that describe training design and competition objectives at each LTAD stage, coaches and parents should consult the sport-specific LTAD plan from their sport’s national organization.

• In the Train to Compete stage (females 15-21, males 16-23), athletes choose one sport in which they will train to excel. Athletes will train to solidify their sport-specific and position-specific skills and all of their physical capacities. These athletes are aiming to compete in national and international events.
• At the Train to Compete stage of LTAD, this is where competition becomes “serious.” Athletes enter this stage if they have chosen to specialize in one sport and excel at the highest level of competition possible.
• Athletes need to commit to high-volume and high-intensity training throughout the year. Instruction in topics such as nutrition, sport psychology, recovery and regeneration, injury prevention, and injury management also become very important.
• Formal competition becomes more prominent in annual periodized training, competition and recovery plans, and includes major national and international events.
• Train to Compete athletes are not the average community sport program participant. They are committed athletes with recognized talent who have chosen an elite pathway that few others pursue.

• Ages are sport-specific and based on national and international normative data, which represents the average score for a certain factor across various levels of performance (height, weight, etc.)
• Maintenance or improvement of physical capacities
• Further development of technical, tactical and playing skills
• Modelling all possible aspects of competition in training
• Frequent preventative breaks • Maximize ancillary capacities
• Performance on demand • Single, double, triple or multiple periodization
• Sport-specific technical, tactical and fitness training 9-15 times per week

• Active for Life is both a stage in LTAD and an outcome of CS4L.
• The Active for Life stage of LTAD is the final destination of all Canadians. In this stage, athletes and participants enjoy lifelong participation in a variety of competitive and recreational opportunities in sport and physical activity.
• If the participant decides not to compete, this stage can be entered at the age of 12 +, beginning with developing physical literacy in infancy, and evolves to being Competitive for Life and/or Fit for Life through all phases of adulthood.
• Active for Life, along with physical literacy and sport excellence, is one of three key outcomes within Canadian Sport for Life in which Canadians remain active in sport and physical activity for life by developing physical literacy.
• In this stage, no one is pursuing Olympic or open World Championship glory. Some athletes in Competitive for Life are still involved in very high-performance competition that is not leading to the Olympics or World Cups while others are pursuing sport and physical activity for fitness and health, all for personal satisfaction.
• Under ideal circumstances, athletes and participants enter the Active for Life stage of LTAD at one of two times:
  
  1. After they have developed physical literacy by the end of the Learn to Train stage and chosen to pursue sport and physical activity according to the goals of the Active for Life stage.
  2. After they have exited the LTAD high-performance training and competition stream (Train to Train, Train to Compete, and Train to Win stages).