Unlocking Your Potential: Long-Term Athletic Development in Action
In the world of education, curriculum is king. It is impossible to envision an academic setting where students do not move through a structured framework in their class work. For example, slowly learning numbers, then learning to count, then learning to add, so on and so on. Building skills on top of skills. In the world of academia this is called vertical alignment. Where the development of knowledge is scaffolded, always keeping in mind the skills needed by graduation.
In the world of athletics, athletic development, and physical education, we often do not have defined stepping stones for learning. One reason might be because growth and maturation is non-linear and somewhat unpredictable, there is an inherent unknown. But I would argue the same happens in the classroom. We all know of the young student who has a C average but as they steadily move through the curriculum the student improves and sometimes becomes a standout in the subject. With a developmental pathway we hope to provide the same runway from a physical fitness, physical literacy, sport skill, and mental skills.
With a principles based long term athletic development framework integrated into physical education and athletics we allow students to develop at their own pace, with the aim of graduating young people who have the skills to lead healthy, active, and high performing lives.
In this article we will examine true LTAD and how we’ve implemented these concepts at Cape Henry Collegiate.
Applying Long-Term Athletic Development
Previous to my current position, my experience in the world of strength and conditioning was in college sports and a short time in professional basketball. At that level I saw players who were typically recruited or drafted because of their skills but their body held them back from playing immediately.
This spawned an interest, can we reverse engineer the process and help make freshmen or rookies more ready to contribute to success?
When building a program my first step was to establish core principles. It is vital for any successful program to have a set of core values, or principles, that work as a north star when making decisions. My program principles are not specific to sets/reps schemes, exercises, or any other nuanced details. My set of principles hovers over top of these decisions, guiding you from a 10,000 foot view. For us, we adopted the 10 Principles For Successful Long Term Athletic Development from the 2019 NSCA position statement on LTAD.
Below we are going to look at each principle and how it applies to our setting, why it is important, and how you can apply the principles to guide your work.
LTAD Principles Applied
- Long-term athletic development pathways should accommodate for the highly individualized and non-linear nature of the growth and development of youth.
As mentioned in the introduction, the growth and maturation of young people is very different individual. It is almost impossible to predict or plan for the changing interests, changing hormonal environments, physical growth, or the countless other variables that affect young people. To account for this we do not offer just one training program for all students. We also do not offer one training program for a specific sport. We program three levels of programs and students will slide up and down the scale based on training age, time of the year, maturity level, rate of growth, etc.
The other intervention we made to take into account the nonlinear nature of development is a “selection” based middle school athletic program, not a “cut” based program. In a selection based program students are placed with teammates who share a similar skill level. In a more traditional middle school athletic program the weakest students are cut and thus ends their development.
We know that some students hit their peak height velocity (PHV) sooner than others, female bodies change, and the motivations of students change. By not cutting students we account for these unpredictable variables while still keeping them engaged in sport. This approach allows for both early and late PHV students to all develop.
- Youth of all ages, abilities and aspirations should engage in long-term athletic development programs that promote both physical fitness and psychosocial wellbeing.
Joe Kenn once said, “the first transferable trait of strength training is confidence”. The biggest thing we can do for young people is boost their self esteem. The positive relationship between exercise and mental health is overwhelming and well researched. If we offer young people nothing else, we should teach them to build a habit (and hopefully passion) for exercise and health. Following the concept that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, if you teach a man to fish he will eat for a lifetime.
- All youth should be encouraged to enhance physical fitness from early childhood, with a primary focus on motor skill and muscular strength development.
At young ages motor control is constantly adapting to the growing limbs that need to be coordinated. A quality that helps improve motor control is relative strength. If we choose only one characteristic to develop, throughout the lifespan, we should choose strength relative to body weight. From rolling over in your crib, to crawling, all the way to climbing stairs in old age, relative strength is king. Using a variety of methods we keep motor skill and strength development a priority, Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12.
- Long-term athletic development pathways should encourage an early sampling approach for youth that promotes and enhances a broad range of motor skills.
I will again reference our no cut, selection based model of middle school athletics. This structure allows for students to try sports throughout the year without the fear of being cut or isolated. We have many stories of students who were low level players in 6th and 7th grade only to blossom into varsity contributors or college athletes by the time they graduate. We aim for students to be exposed to a wide variety of sports by the time they enter high school, building physical literacy and multi-sport exposure.
- Health and wellbeing of the child should always be the central tenet of long term athletic development programs.
If you are reading this I hope that you always put the health and wellbeing of your students, athletes, clients, or patients as the central tenet of all decision making. This should go without saying but unfortunately we see far too many examples of failures regarding this principle.
- Youth should participate in physical conditioning that helps reduce the risk of injury to ensure their on-going participation in long-term athletic development programs.
The key verbiage in this principle, in my opinion, is “on-going participation”. We accomplish nothing if a child quits a sport or stops participating in the S&C program. I often use the example of investing with our students (hopefully teaching two lessons at once). If you follow the history of the stock market it is always going up. Of course there are peaks and valleys, massive collapses, and massive booms. But on average, if you are in it long enough, you will make money.
Same applies to long term athletic development. The sooner you start and more ups and downs you can manage and the more you will progress in the long run. None of this is possible if they stop participating.
- Long-term athletic development programs should provide all youth with a range of training modes to enhance both health- and skill-related components of fitness.
We aim to graduate students who can walk into their college rec center and feel comfortable and confident to exercise, on a consistent basis. For students who continue athletics at the college level, we want to give them every advantage possible. To accomplish this we need to expose students to a variety of modalities. We also need to expose them to the thought process behind writing a workout plan. Empowering the students with skills that will provide benefits for years to come. I also feel this principle encourages sport sampling. Especially sports you can participate in recreationally. For example, tennis, golf, cross country, pick up basketball, etc.
- Practitioners should use relevant monitoring and assessment tools as part of a long-term athletic development strategy.
As with any S&C program, testing and assessment is critical to measuring the success of a system. This is especially true of a population that is growing physically at incredible rates and whose hormones are changing rapidly. We use multiple different methods to evaluate motor control, strength, power, and body composition. We have measurements we use on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to monitor our students. Every setting is different but find what works best for you and stay consistent.
- Practitioners working with youth should systematically progress and individualize training programs for successful long-term athletic development.
Similar to principle eight, this is true of all S&C programs, no matter the age of the athlete. Even more important at the youth level is the ability to systematize your training program. A well organized training system allows you to prescribe the right program at the right time. Our three level system allows me to slide a student up, or down, depending on a variety of factors. With a growing athlete random prescription will lead to random results, or worse, injury.
- Qualified professionals and sound pedagogical approaches are fundamental to the success of long-term athletic development programs.
As mentioned in the introduction, the academic world is very structured with clear learning objectives, testing, placement, evaluation, and graduation. Physical education is often not the same. Sometimes before the better, often for the worse.
Our primary objective is to first, do no harm. To accomplish this it is vital the schools value and employ qualified and certified teachers. If you are interested in the requirements for Public Schools in your state take a look at this resource from SHAPE America.
What’s Next?
As with any set of principles this outline is not perfect and has to be adapted for your specific situation. The 10 principles outlined by the NSCA position statement have worked for us as a starting point when developing programs. It has been helpful especially when understanding if we are headed in the right direction and not missing any elements for true long term athletic development.
Going forward our next goal is to implement the foundational principles of LTAD into our athletic programs. A large portion of athletic performance is not related to strength and conditioning. Ultimately sport specific skill is what will impact playing time, team performance, and potential. With this in mind we need to prioritize the vertical alignment of sport specific skill along with general physical preparation.
We hope that the synergy between physical development and sport development will help students maximize potential while getting the most enjoyment possible out of physical activity.
If I can be of any help to you, or your program, please feel free to reach out.
Thanks!
