Why Choosing Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD) is a Win for Athletes
I can see why shiny, quick-fix performance promises are appealing for parents of youth athletes. As parents, we all want our children to succeed. We want them to have opportunities, confidence, health, and friendships. Sports can bring all of those things to the table when training strategies are in the best interest of an athlete’s long-term success. But, the wrong training strategy can result in athletes having to manage low self-esteem, career-ending injuries, or an aversion to physical activity as they move into adulthood.
Why Instant Gratification Culture is Dangerous
Unfortunately for developing athletes, we live in a culture obsessed with instant gratification and life-hacks. Some youth fitness professionals lure young athletes into training programs with bogus promises of dramatic improvement in speed, strength, and performance. It’s so common and disheartening because these dangerous claims set young athletes up for disappointment. Athletic improvement takes time and requires sticking to a strategic plan.
How to Kill Athletic Enthusiasm
Dangling the glory of huge gains like a carrot for young athletes could set them up for failure, teaching them to seek one-size-fits-all measures of success and to strive for goals that may not be attainable. When athletes fall short, they don’t receive praise, so they feel like a failure despite their efforts; a terrible lesson to teach young kids. When a coach or trainer takes this approach, only the most elite athletes in the group have a chance to succeed. Following programs like this can backfire for non-elite athletes, resulting in low self-esteem, quitting sports, and avoiding physical activity to preserve what’s left of their self-worth. Experiences like this chase kids into adulthood and prevent them from enjoying athletics as an adult. Avoiding activity leads to potential health consequences, which is a primary factor in the health epidemic in our country today.
Benefits of Playing the Long Game
The good news is, there is a better way to train athletes: long-term athletic development (LTAD). Coaches who ascribe to this training method teach athletes to strive for continual, steady improvement to achieve long-term success instead of chasing momentary glory at the risk of injury or a false sense of accomplishment. This mindset trains young athletes to develop a more realistic understanding of what it takes to achieve success and improve athletically. These lessons compound outside of the athletic realm, arming young athletes with the skills to become successful adults and create beneficial habits to improve their quality of life.
LTAD Athletes Behave Differently
Athletes engaging in a long-term developmental process are motivated by their desire to improve, opposed to the pressure to perform for a coach or parent. The psychological effect of training for the sake of improvement, instead of performance, results in creative kids who become deep thinkers and develop critical problem-solving skills. Ultimately, LTAD athletes develop a strengthened sense of individuality and self-worth because they have learned that success is competency demonstrated over time.
What Parents Can Do
Our main job as parents is to give our children the tools to become functional and healthy adults capable of success. A cultural fear of failure and severe consequences for poor performance permeates youth sports, placing a lot of pressure on young athletes. As a result, kids lose their joy of playing sports and moving their bodies, never realizing a lifelong love for sports and movement. Parents can change this by sending their athlete to a coach or trainer who teaches kids to enjoy physical activity for the sake of sport and improvement. Working with a trainer who takes a long-term approach will give your child the tools they need to build good habits and develop solid movement skills to help prevent injury. Celebrating incremental progress on their way to success — whatever that may look like for them — is another perk of working with a trainer who plays the long game.