This week’s topic in the Sport Coaching Pedagogy unit at the University of Canberra was Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD).
The topic gave me an opportunity to reflect on my experience in athlete development pathways from the 1990s to the present day. Some time ago, I did post a copy of a 2002 presentation on talent identification and development on SlideShare. This week’s presentation includes a link to it. At that time my thinking was influenced very strongly by Debbie Hoare.
I had met Istvan Balyi too. In the 1990s, I was very interested in Istvan’s views on periodisation. I found his insights revelationary. I was encouraged to think much more deeply about planning programs and their connections with personal flourishing. This led to other conversations with Istvan and Graham Ross about LTAD.
This week’s presentation shares some information about Istvan’s work in LTAD and provides some links to critiques of the system and to alternative conceptualisation of development.
Preparing the presentation took me back to Edward Crossman’s 1959 paper, A Theory of the Acquisition of Speed-Skill and cigar rolling. This graph prompted me to think about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice discussed in the LTAD literature (and elsewhere):
My presentation is here:
