Bristol Henleaze Swimming Club

A SHORTER GUIDE TO LONG TERM ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT (LTAD)

INTRODUCTION

Scientific research has indentified that it takes at least 10 years, or 10,000 hours for talented athletes to achieve sporting excellence. There are no short cuts!

There are two ways in which young swimmers can improve their performance:

• Training
• Growth & Development

Long term athlete development (LTAD) is about achieving optimal training, competition and recovery throughout an athlete's career, particularly in relation to the important growth and development years of young people. If a long term approach to training is not adopted there is likely to be a plateau in performance, when growth and development slows significantly. Which for some swimmers may result in their performances getting worse. At this point the short-term training approach cannot be reversed. This often leads to drop out before a swimmer has achieved close to their potential.

REASONS FOR LTAD

There are five clear reasons for introducing a long term athlete development approach:

• To establish a clear swimmer development pathway
• To identify gaps in the current swimmer development pathway
• To realign and integrate the programmes for developing swimmers and swimming in Britain
• To provide a planning tool, based on scientific research, for coaches and administrators
• To guide planning for optimal performance

It is anticipated that the principles of LTAD will be used to review existing swimming initiatives led by the governing body and inform any future initiatives. It is hoped that all swimming providers will use LTAD in a similar way. This will enable the swimming community to pull in one direction towards achieving swimming's goals and targets.

CURRENT SPORT SYSTEM ISSUES

The following are some general observations of sporting systems around the world (including Britain)

• Young athletes under-train, over-compete
• Low training to competition ratios in early years
• Adult competition superimposed on young athletes
• Adult training programmes superimposed on young athletes
• Male programmes superimposed on females
• Training in early years focuses on outcomes (winning) rather than processes (optimal training)
• Chronological age influences coaching rather than biological age
• The ''critical'' periods of accelerated adaption are not fully utilised
• Poor training between 6-16 years of age cannot be fully corrected (athletes will never reach genetic potential)
• The best coaches are encouraged to work at elite level
• Coach education tends to skim the growth, development and maturation of young people
• Coaches, swimmers and parents need to be educated in LTAD principles
• Administrators and officials need to be educated in LTAD principles

Bill Sweetenham (British Swimming National Performance Directot) summed up the current position with the development of British Swimming thus:

''Right now we have too many clubs in Great Britain offering too little training time and in most cases too much competition. This leaves many athletes in a twighlight zone of training too much for fun but too little for results. For a senior athlete training under 8 hours a week the benefits are social, fun, participation, team building and health benefits. For those athletes wishing for an international career and who are serious about optimum performance at national level then swimming in a programme with a high performance objective of 18-25 hours is approximately what it will take to achieve these objectives. However, in most countries and in most clubs, the vast majority of athletes train between 8 and 14 hours per week. Changing this twilight zone should be the major focus of every club and national programme.'' (Bill Sweetenham 2002)

LTAD FRAMEWORK

Long Term athlete development (LTAD) is a sports development framework that is based on human growth and development. In short, it is about adopting an athlete centred approach to swimming development.

All young people follow the same pattern of growth from infancy through adolescence, but there are significant individual differences in both the timing and magnitude of the changes that take place. It is however important to stress that human growth and development happens without training, however swimming training can enhance all of the changes that take place.

A number of scientists have reported that there are critical periods in the life of a young person in which the effects of training can be maximised. This has led to the notion that young people should be exposed to specific types of training during periods of rapid growth and that the types of training should change with the patterns of growth. These have been used by DR Istvan Balyi to devise a five stage LTAD framework that has been adapted to swimming:

• FUNdamental - basic movement literacy     Female: 5 to 8 years   /    Male: 6 to 9 years
• SwimSkills - building technique     Female: 8 to 11 years   /   Male: 9 to 12 years
• Training to train - building the engine     Female: 11 to 16 years   /   Male: 12 to 15 years
• Training to compete - optimising the engine     Female: 14 to 16 years   /   Male: 15 to 18 years
• Training to win - maximising the engine     Female: 16+ years   /   Male: 18+ years

After reading the above you will realise that Bristol Henleaze SC are now proud followers of British Swimmings LTAD module. ''We would like to think that our training in the early years now focuses on optimal training and our club has an athlete centered approach.''