Long Term Athlete Development Literature Review

Introduction
Long Term Athlete Development is a road map for physical and mental development. It is a training, competition and recovery program based on biological age rather than chronological age. LTAD provides two models, one for early specialization sports with five main phases and the other for late specialization sports with seven main phases. According to Robertson and Way in the article Long-Term Athlete Development state; Individuals who practise and develop through the LTAD model experience training and competition in programs that consider their biological and training ages in creating period plans specific to their developmental needs.

Literature Review
The LTAD model covers every aspect of human physical development and it

After 8 years of coaching I still feel that my philosophy is still not complete as I am always learning different ways in order to deal with children better. Apart from being a coach in a gymnastics environment as my part-time job, I also teach in a government middle school. I find teaching and coaching very similar. Although I feel that some differences do exist, as in my coaching sessions, I find children more geared for the particular sport and I find this helpful when I am delivering the session. In my sessions one of the values I follow is that I respect my students and also speak gently. I prefer that the students look at my session as a time in their day where they can have fun while learning. I feel that students in our educational system tend to have a lot of theoretical work, so I would want my students to enjoy their time during the session. Something else I value while coaching is that I trust my students. I found that trusting my students helped in building a good

In my netball career I am still competing at national team level. However, in my gymnastics career I had to stop earlier. This purpose helps me to inhibit some of the passion I have for the sport to my athletes. Together with this coaching principle I also hope that the passion I inhibit in my students will develop them to be skilful, have a positive attitude and a positive behaviour in order to teach others.
Some things I learned in my coaching experience, in which I consider to be part of my coaching philosophy is to always reflect on the sessions I give to my students and athletes in order to better myself. Also I try to listen to my students as sometimes they will be delivering messages that I could learn from them.

Conclusion
I find that one’s coaching philosophy can change according to the experiences one might have through-out their career. I feel that from when I have started to coach my coaching philosophy changed. From my personal reflections after my sessions, I feel that I have grown to have a better coaching philosophy resulting to being a more confident