Development Concept | Stages

The USVILA and its National Teams Program embrace the principles, practices and concepts of Long-term athlete development (LTAD) as an emergent concept gaining traction and picking up speed across the United States and into Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Asia. The driving force behind the LTAD model is to improve the quality of sports programs with the belief that such emphasis will enable all participants to reach their full potential. 

Athletes Develop in Stages

LTAD is the planned, systematic and progressive development of individual athletes. It is also referred to as long-term participant development or long-term player development. As a concept, LTAD is designed to answer one fundamental question: What needs to be done at each stage of human development to give every athlete the best chance of engaging in lifelong, health-enhancing physical activity, and for those with drive and talent, the best chance of athletic success?

Sport Involvement is a Lifelong Endeavor

Effective long-term athlete development programs focus on what’s best for the participant throughout their life, rather than seek short-term gains, early success, and quick profits. Developing a comprehensive long-term athletic development program in the USVI is critical and must focus on the youth level, ages 3–14 years. 

Emphasizing Athleticism and Physical Literacy

Athleticism is the result of athletic movement skills development that involves learning proper techniques for agility, balance, coordination, flexibility, metabolic training, power, reaction time, speed, strength, and strength endurance. The LTAD model goes much further when properly implemented, by providing a change in sports programs and identifying gaps, providing guidelines for movement problem-solving, improving performance, and developing physical literacy, physical fitness for life, and competitive athletics. A long-term commitment to physical literacy, proper training to improve athleticism, and sport skill development is vital to produce optimal athletic potential.

Scientific research reports and reveals a series of critical phases (windows of opportunity) in the lifespan of athletes that begins at the earliest ages and stages of development. Throughout the process, each of these critical phases can be maximized with proper training methodologies and techniques that are managed, monitored and delivered by knowledgeable coaches.

Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) provides the underlying logic, concepts, and means of developing an integrated, systematic, approach to athlete development that ensures the achievement of full athletic potential. The LTAD model explicitly acknowledges that it could take, on average, 8-12 years to reach elite status. And it repudiates the notion or idea that youth athletes under the age of 15 are "elite". Efforts to categorize and claim such status at premature ages and stages of development are largely "Pro Model" sales tactics that too often lead to injury, underdevelopment, dissatisfaction, and disengagement. 

Stages and Factors of LTAD

By assuming an athlete-centered approach which emphasizes suitable training objectives, priorities and emphases at every age and stage, LTAD programs prioritize physical literacy as the primary objective which include the building blocks of fitness (speed, endurance, strength, flexibility, skill). LTAD embraces, demands and emphasizes mastery of fundamental sports movement before progressing to training and performance-based goals and criteria.

LTAD Growing Globally

But like most general systems or programs, there are always areas that require further improvement. While the theory and concept of LTAD has been researched, promoted and implemented for years, particularly in a number of European countries, it is still very early in its implementation phases across the globe. As the number of implementations increase internationally, the volume of qualitative research associated with academic research and study will increase as well, thereby generating further empirical data and evidence on the efficacy of the model.

LTAD Gaining Traction in the USVI

Equally important, the National Governing Organizations (NGO's) of many sports have adopted LTAD but have not yet reached full-scale implementation including integration with coaching education systems of development. Our player development approach is consistent with the current principles and paradigms of the sport of lacrosse, and we have structured our program to encourage engagement, participation, and fun.