LTAD workshop takes aim at planning, periodization

A one-day workshop, set for Frenches House on February 15, will continue the Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD) programme here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Local coaches who are interested in being part of the workshop have until February 9 to register with the National Olympic Committee of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The full-day workshop, which is open to coaches, will overview the key concepts of periodization, which include: volume, intensity and frequency of training, periods, phases, mesocycles and micro cycles of annual programmes.

Additionally, the packed day’s activities will also look at a step-by-step approach to planning micro cycles, phases of training and tapering and peaking, as well as 10 steps to create and quantify and annual training, competition and recovery programme and a taper plan.

The workshop will also see participating coaches engage in three small group workshops dealing with actual planning sessions on integrated micro cycle planning.

Providing the information will be Istvan Balyi, who has been the resident sport scientist of the National Coaching Institute at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Balyi brings with him years of experience, having worked with several Canadian national teams as high performance advisor and planning and periodization consultant for major games. He is a world renowned coaching educator and his series on Long-Term Athlete Development and periodization have been published in Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Istvan is currently the LTAD advisor for Sports Coach UK (National Coaching Foundation), Sport Scotland, the Sports Council for Wales, and the Sports Council for Northern Ireland.

He is a member of Sport Canada’s expert advisory group of Long-term Athlete Development and presently works with 11 Canadian sports to develop LTAD models, including Athletics Canada, Basketball Canada, Canoe Kayak Canada, Curling Canada, Field Hockey Canada, Gymnastics Canada, Karate Canada, Rowing Canada, Rugby Canada and Speed Skating Canada.

On February 16, last year, the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), through the St Vincent and the Grenadines Olympic Committee, launched the LTAD project here.

The LTAD project addresses the issue of physical literacy, which speaks to a more holistic developmental approach to children in sports, and the physical and psychological development of the individual through a pathway of activities which recognizes not only the child’s chronological age, but their biological age also.(RT)