Comparing The Canadian Hockey L.T.A.D Model With The Basketball L.T.A.D Model (Essay Sample)

Long-Term Athlete Development
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Long-term athlete development (LTAD) is a pathway that shapes a particular individuals experience in sport and physical aspect from infancy to adulthood. There are series of developmental stages the athletes pass through as they progress. The principles are grouped depending on ages. Active start; aged below six years. This is a stage about play and understanding basic movement skills. Children are allowed to have fun in various physical activities. It includes an array of activities that emphasizes on body movements. This stage improves brain development function, coordination, social skills, motor skills, emotions, and imaginations. It also serves as a confidence booster, enable kids to have good health and posture, move skillfully, proper bone structures, stress-free lives and improve activeness in general. Fundamental stage focuses on the overall movement skills, from ages 6-9 in boys and 6-8 in girls. It involves various well-structured activities that help develop fundamental sports skills. Agility, movement skills and overall motor skills like coordination and reflexes. Formal competition is gradually introduced but on a minimum level. The focus is still on the children having fun. These sessions are also meant to minimize injuries and evolution of bad habits. Children are encouraged to get involved in many games to help them make a decision. Learning to train encompasses more specialization and competition. The primary objectives are to develop event-specific area physical and specific protocols to identify strengths and weaknesses. Integration of physical growth enhanced mental and emotional developments. The concept of Performance Enhancement Team is introduced. . Training to train stage is also known the stage of building the engine. The primary objectives of this stage are to develop endurance, strength, and speed of the children. It also helps in developing athletics-specific skills and fitness. It has been considered as the most challenging stage of all since it encompasses opportunity and vulnerability; it focuses on specific skill development of a sport. Training to win focuses on high performances. Active for life stage is transitioning from one sport to another; this is a stage for any age sportsperson. At this stage, the player has entirely withdrawn from a specific sport. It helps them to adjust to a life without the game. It is not addressed mainly by coaches but rather the payers themselves. The factors that influence LTAD are: 10-Year rule, fundamentals, specialization, development age, trainability, human developments, periodization and calendar planning for competition, system alignment and continuous improvements.
Firstly, Hockey coaches play a crucial role in the development of the athlete. They should monitor the growth of an athlete into the game by incorporating the principles and also ensuring all the stages are followed to the core. Canadian hockey coaches are critical in nurturing players and giving the balance and eliminating the mentality that the game is about winning but rather just having fun and enjoyment. In learning to train stage, coaches are encouraged to seek higher education programs to improve their skills; NCCP training. Their main focus is on the technical skill and imposing tactics on the athletes to induct them into the team’s character. Intensity of the trainings should be increased to bring out more from the athletes. Training to train stage in LTAD model further emphasizes the coach to do such to develop endurance in the game and tactics implementation. Coaches should teach the athletes on ethics and rules of the game. Conducting the training should be in an area that mirrors’ the real game. Their interaction with the athletes ensures that the players understand the basic concept of the sport and the tactics to improve their output. They are also mental tutors of the athletes. Monitoring the players’ growth over time and also noting the medical conditions of the athletes. They are the decision-makers in the sport and thus should be the ones to move players across these stages. Setting goals for the athletes from their tender ages to their primes is also an important role of coaches; they should expose the athletes to numerous repetitive drills to improve grasping of skills. Identifying potential barriers and conflicts athletes may face and approaching them positively. These models however have judged coaches as people who cannot come up with their own skills but rather be trained. Coaches should not be limited while exercising their duty. As coaches strive to go by the book, the athletes might lose their peaks due to failure to notice. Secondly, basketball coaches are the major players in ensuring the players attain their limit. In training to train phase they are tasked with refining the tactics of the players, improving ball handling. Players’ physicality, skills and concepts of the sport are developed further. The coaches use a pyramid-like structure to train the players. It has four categories namely; basketball skills, fitness, mental skills and life skills. Training to learn involves technical skills and game modifications. They help improve ball skills, understanding perimeter movements, lay-ups, and other principles. They provide strong direction and supervision to the players. Coaches are meant to be role models and should not play favorites. Every player must be treated equally, and they should have sufficient game times. Tactics of the game should be able to include both sexes. They are to determine the strengths of players and role them accordingly. Being the sole decision makers, they monitor players’ health both physically and psychologically. Coaches use the model to avoid overtraining and overstressing players. They have authority and voice over the players, and also set goals to be achieved over a period. They should have a good skill set of the game to aid in player development. However, basketball coaches have also been known to instill high-intensity training all year round. The training stages are so demanding and such intensity can lead to player burn out.
Athletes in hockey are encouraged to start skating early in life. They should practice and input their context of the game into practical action. Identifying positions, specific technical and tactical skills they possess. Developing physical literacy should be just before the adolescent stage. Improvement of motor skills, movement skills, aerob...