Long Term Athlete Development Essay

The Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model is a framework for reaching an optimal training, competition and recovery schedule for all aspects of human development. This model should allow all individuals to be physically active through participation in sport and recreation. It is important to begin the learning process at a young age. Before an individual can become skilled in any activity, they must first acquire the fundamental skills. In soccer, developing the basic skills such as running, jumping, throwing, kicking, etc allows the child to utilise and incorporate them into practice and live games.

Once the individual learns the fundamental skills they can then begin the cognitive stage. This stage begins when the task is first introduced

There are various types of transfer such as negative and positive transfer and near and far transfer. Negative transfer is not very common however, it does sometimes occur. This is where there is a dissonance between the previously learned skill and a new skill. For instance, you dribble the ball with your feet but in basketball you dribble the ball with your hands. Opposite of negative transfer is positive transfer. Positive transfer usually occurs when two skills are similar in some way. Having already mastered one of the skills, the second skill is easier to learn. For example, in soccer you overhead throw the ball in to play and in basketball an overhead throw is a type of pass you can use. Another type of transfer is called near transfer. This is where the skill being practiced is different yet still similar to the criteria of the task. A soccer may teach their team different tactics in hopes that these tactics will positively transfer to the actual game. Finally, the opposite of near transfer is far transfer. This type of transfer involves more general capabilities and a wider variety of skills. Near transfer is most effective when the player is just beginning to learn a skill. Consider a child learning how to kick a soccer ball. This general movement can be applied to kicking a field goal, a rugby kick off, playing sepak takraw,