Thinking LTAD

With this new role now in full swing at Eastbourne College, I've been thinking a lot into how to best develop the kids to help them grow as athletes.

I'm hoping that this role will continue to grow, and that in time it will become full-time and I will have the opportunity to put a Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) plan into place to progress students through from Year 9 through to Year 13.

Now this is nothing new, and what I'm going to speak about with my plan will also be nothing out of the ordinary, but I wanted to put pen to paper (well ... fingers to keyboard) to detail what's going through my head.

Currently I get 1 hour a week with the individual sports scholars, and I also have my own S&C section of Games sessions, where I am currently working largely with Rugby but this will change after Christmas.

I am planning to stick to what a lot of people use for LTAD:
Age 6 to 10 - FUNdamentals
Age 10 to 15 - Training to train
Age 15 to 18 - Training to compete
Age 18+ - Training to WIN

Now I will only be working with students from the age of 13 to 18, so the FUNdamentals and Training to Win will not be part of my remit, but I aim to push the Training to Compete relatively hard because I will exposure to the kids twice a week; scholar and games sessions.

The reason for wanting to stick to this plan is that I am a firm believer against early specialisation. For a child to be able to fully develop in a sporting sense, they should be exposed to plenty of different training stimuli, and with that have the opportunity to grasp things from several different training situations.
A balance of invasion games versus non-invasion games for example can give a very big benefit to how an athlete may be able to view things once they finally settle on a sport.
It also means that they are much less likely to fall into the trap of over-use injuries; which are becoming an increasing problem.
Early-specialisation is thankfully being recognised as a problem, so much so that some major Colleges in America will not take athletes on Scholarship if they have only played one sport for more than one year.

Outside of this, I plan to develop it further by putting in a layering system, or block system, for how to take students through from arrival at age 13, to leaving at 18. The aim is that during their sixth form years (16-18) they are largely able to take charge of their own training; I will still do the programming, but they should by that point have an understanding of what it all means and why they are doing it.
By age 18 I want for them to move on to wherever they head next, University for example, and have a very solid foundation of strength and conditioning to be able to build upon and give them the best chance for sporting success as they develop further towards their prime years as athletes.

Now I haven't completely finalised my plans for the layering/block system, but it essentially build upon itself term after term.
For example:
Year 9 Term 1 - Movement fundamentals
Year 9 Term 2 - Developing strength through movement
Year 9 Term 3 - Developing power through movement

Nothing groundbreaking, like I said at the start, but it's a step in the right direction for a school which has the opportunity to develop some fantastic athletes if taken through an athletic training process.

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So, this summarises the kind of plan that I am hoping to put into place and shows, in some way, the kind of steps that it would have as part of it.
Taking an athlete from Point A to B is massively important as part of this, not just trying to skip ahead to Point Z! If they can't move properly, then why add external stress to a poor movement pattern?

I hope this makes some sense.

Feel free to contact me or leave any comments/thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

Eastbourne College - Building the process

As many of you will know (because I posted it all over social media ... as always) I have recently taken up a new job as Head of Strength & Conditioning at Eastbourne College.

This has been really amazing so far. It's a totally fresh challenge because I haven't worked with kids for over 4 years so it's tough at times but worth it. I'm still part time at the moment (15 hours per week) but I'm getting handed more and more each week, and I've got more people asking to do this or that so it is gradually expanding which is very exciting.
I'm hoping that it will continue to build to eventually become a full-time role within this year, and if not then hopefully the 2017/18 academic year, as long as I can show my worth and they want to keep me on.

So I just anted to put pen to paper and speak about the process that I am trying to put in place and build at the College.
There has been an S&C program there before, but the person in charge was also a lecturer so couldn't give all his attention to it to allow it to develop. This is my only position at the College so I am trying to give it all my attention whenever I am away from Esher things or Online Coaching with TBB.

Again, working with youth is something that I haven't done for a long time, and something that I don't have a lot of experience with from an S&C standpoint. So I've been thinking about it a lot; how to develop the Under 14s differently to the Under 18s. Or do I need to do it differently at all?
How do I differentiate between sports? What age do I start getting sport specific in the weight room? Which exercises to do, or not to do? And probably the most important of all of them ... how do I educate these kids along the process so that they understand the "why" as well as the "how"?

Let me try to break down what I'm going to try to put into place:
Year 9s - lots of bodyweight based exercises and low level plyometrics. There will also be an introduction to the fundamental lifts but only when under instruction.
Year 10s - more development into fundamental lifts but with a basis of GPP.
Year 11s - continuation of the fundamental lifts and start to train with some kind of focus towards sports performance rather than GPP.
Year 12s & 13s - continue to develop the fundamental lifts and start to coach more technical aspects. Focus on sports performance, injury prevention and mobility.

That's how I have things in my head at the moment. The idea is then that once I have been around for a year or two (here's hoping) then the plan will start to follow through - the year 10s will already have a good level of gym experience and technical background ready to progress into the more intense training sessions.

In terms of education the main aim is basically to just always be available to answer questions, and to explain to students why we are doing certain exercises, and how they can impact them.
It is also going to be a constant focus point to keep the students mobile and paying attention to correct form and movement patterns throughout. I don't ever want them sacrificing form for weight, so they are told to always leave 2 reps in the tank rather than push too far.

Essentially - my aim for all the students is that by the time they leave Eastbourne College they are able to head to their next destination with a good knowledge of what to do in the gym, and also why they are doing those things. I never had the opportunity to have S&C support at any point until I started doing it myself, so I want these guys and girls to have a step up. Starting in the gym with real focus from Year 9 ... if only!

Hopefully this gives some kind of idea as to what I'm trying to achieve and how I'm looking at doing it. Feel free to get in touch.