Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Model, Stage 5 'Train to Compete'

Source: Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences (SSSS) | Institutional Social Responsibility (ISR) 2019-2020 | Clicked by SSSS Social Media Team.

Cramming to challenge the Challenges. 

Fred Devito (Juma, N. 2019),

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.”

Implementing change is the toughest part in any system, and when it comes to our own lives, we (humans) are highly reluctant towards changing ourselves whether that points us towards effectiveness to achieve our objectives in order to fulfill the needs and wants. It is easier to point out the changes in others or the flaws in the process for further enhancement or defects in that particular process, but it is never easy to self-analyze and judge what we have done or what possibly went wrong from our end, is it?

Especially in Sports, it is very necessary for the athletes to rapidly adapt to situations, rules & regulations, support staff, coaches, family difficulties and what not. In other words, adapt to any change as quickly as possible. The list would be huge if we start counting the type of changes, an athlete has to figure out to over-come multiple angles of pressure, whether it be a win or a loss. Family, friends & relatives are the first to judge or compliment, plus we (India) has over 1-billion individuals analyzing & giving their inputs, whether it be an injury, family issues, technical issues or governmental issues, based on data which is already analyzed, available for ‘n’ number of judgement angles. In one way of the other, it directly affects the preparations of an athlete, no matter what tournament she/he is playing or going to participate.

How is competition, closely related to the necessity for a change? Or, Is there any relation b/w competition & change? In my views definitively a big YES. Every competition (tournament) brings in specific requirements for success and athletes need to have specific needs and wants to be the best, by beating the best, be it the same opponent multiple times. For example, Badminton: PV Sindhu recently played Akane Yamaguchi consecutively in Indonesia Open BWF Tour Super 1000 tournament (finals) and Japan Open Super 750 tournament (quarter-finals) within a span of 7-10 days. Though she lost both the matches, by 15-21, 16-21 in 51-mins (News18, 2019) and 18-21, 15-21 in 50-mins (IndiaToday.in, 2019) respectively, it was the specifically about, ‘how do I get better for the next game’.

It was the same opponent, similar fan following, same support from the family, friends, support staff, associations, etc., etc., but the intent was different for both Yamaguchi, who won the Indonesia Open finals with an injury and PV Sindhu having lost her previous match to the same opponent. Many criticized her talent and her attitude while she is in the finals as it is happening about a year before Tokyo Olympics 2020, where she has a chance to bring an Olympic Gold for herself and for India.

I observed, how her coach Mrs Kim Ji-Hyun’s aka Jihyun Marr’s behaviour while Sindhu is winning and mostly when she is losing the game and what sort of real-time analysis she does to give frequent updates in the time-outs or breaks b/w the sets, as compared to what Mr Pullela Gopichand does when he is with these world champions, as we saw in BWF World Championships at St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland from 19 to 25 August 2019.

Emil Zatopek (Juma, N. 2019), 

“An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.”

Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity 3.0-Sport for Life

 As humans, especially being an athlete we often try to memorize various instances of our adulthood or the age we were mid-age teenagers, i.e., male: 16-23 +/-, female: 15-21 +/- (Balyi, I 2019), growing towards adolescence in both physical and psychological sense. Change or the perception of adapting to change is nearly a nightmare at that stage because of the tasks we do, little things we have been doing since our early days which help us built our own set of rules and a protective/comfort zone. Breaking out of that zone is the biggest challenge along with coping with others who have already been through, to have a competitive advantage. Physiological and psychological changes, including hormonal changes, are taking place at the same time (Pringle et al., 2016), which has to be taken into consideration while planning the training regime as well as while judging the athlete on his behavior and intentions.

When it comes to Train to Compete, the 5th stage of Long Term Athlete Development (Balyi, I 2019), it is all about seriousness towards a particular sport and making the best out of what you have in terms of equipments, facilities, coaches, etc. and what we have in our control (Prakash Padukone, 2019), which is our performance and attitude both on & off the playing arena. Fifth Stage is the 1st step towards Podium Pathway (Higgs et al., 2019), with all our basics in place while being able to learn to trust ourselves by Believing in whatever we do to the best of our capabilities while learning the ABC’S of Athleticism as part of FUNdamental development without over-training or over-competing or burning out to keep-up with, 70-training:30-competition ratio to learn the art of training, which slowly progresses towards the craft of training to train with specialized training methods & processes.

From the coaching, athlete development and management perspective, this stage is perfect for position-specific or event specific training along with individualized or athlete-specific-designed conditioning module for tactical advancement and technical superiority (Higgs et al., 2019). Coaches have to closely monitor and accordingly raise the bar for competition-specific training and conditioning while considering all negative anomalies like, equipment failure, re-scheduling, travel delay, weather conditions, flooring/surface issues, etc. (Bindra, A., 2019) as Mr. Abhinav Bindra, describes in Go! India’s Sporting Transformation.

Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity 3.0-Sport for Life

In this phase of talent development, the ratio is 60 % competition, 40 % training, where the coaching and support staff records all the data to identify and shares the SWOT (strength, weakness, threat, opportunities) of that athlete for that event and overall analysis, to justify the probability of winning or losing.

During this phase, the mental strength of the talent is tested under various circumstances and advanced methods to strengthen the current state are individualized, depending on the periodization cycle and timings of respective listed activities.

This stage has to have a tremendous focus on the ethical values of the game and the process to further develop and strengthen the approach of the athlete towards the game, while respecting every opponent and fair play pertaining to rules and regulations of respective National & International governing bodies. Also, focus on education towards doping regulations, prohibited substances and intake methods which will lead to serious consequences on a personal level as well as damaging the reputation National and International regulating bodies, if things go sideways.

It is essential for coaches, sports development officers, and athlete managers to be committed towards the athlete’s lifestyle outside sports such as friends, family, relatives, teachers, his/her preferences, etc. in order to understand the behavioral pattern of that athlete ensuring not to generalize it for others, as each of them has their own personality and it is our job as Sports Management Professionals to meet the needs and wants in the best of our capabilities and help them on their way to accomplish their dreams. As Mr. Sourav Ganguly recently elected President, BCCI said in his interview on 23rd Oct 2019, “We will support the current captain in the best possible way. We are here to make their life easier not difficult”.

Billy Bowerman (Juma, N. 2019),

“Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.”

There is an interesting concept in Performance Management System (PMS) aspect of Human Resource (HR) Management. It helps us define the level of readiness of an individual in various situations/scenarios’s/cases: Readiness (R), Ability (A) and Willingness (W).

So, the equation comes down to (R=A+W). Hence, the 4-levels/possibilities of Readiness (R) are as follows,

• Level-1 | Readiness (R) = Unable (uA) + Unwilling (uW) | Feeling of High-Insecurity. 
• Level-2 | Readiness (R) = Unable (uA) + Willing (W) | Feeling of Some-Security. 
• Level-3 | Readiness (R) = Able (A) + Unwilling (uW) | Feeling of Some-In-security. 
• Level-4 | Readiness (R) = Able (A) + Willing (W) | Feeling of High-Security.

Coaches, sports development officers, athlete managers, and selectors have to check on each athlete’s level of readiness not just based on performance and the supporting data, but with equal focus on psychological state of the athletes as it would help in better assess whether they are ready to progress to the next level or, they need little more time in a particular phase or they have to take a hard no for better future of the talent, in which the talent can be moved to the ‘talent pool’ and other sporting dimensions can be a viable career option.

This can be used at every stage of this model and before every tournament/championship, which seems to be pretty easy in books, articles, journals, and blogs, but has to be implemented with a clear road-map of what we want to achieve out of this and how we are going to approach the overall development as well as the respective tournaments. Along with training to compete, there has to be a thought process for winning in every scenario which will be discussed in the 6th Stage: Training to Win of LTAD Model which includes identifying and building up leadership qualities.

Author:
Hitesh Mangtani
MBA-Sports Management Professional
Specialization: Talent/Athlete Development and Management
Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences | 2017-2019 Batch.
Blogger: https://hiteshmangtani.blogspot.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiteshmangtani/

References 

• Way, R., Balyi, I., Higgs, C., Bluechardt, M., Cardinal, C., Norris, S. and Grove, J. (2019). Long-Term Athlete Development Framework - Sport for Life. [online] Sport for Life. Available at: https://sportforlife.ca/quality-sport/long-term-athlete-development/ [Accessed 20 Jun. 2019]. 
• Juma, N. (2019). Inspirational Sports Quotes About Becoming Legendary and Mindset. [online] Everyday Power. Available at: https://everydaypower.com/motivational-sports-quotes/ [Accessed 30 Jul. 2019]. 
• News18. (2019). Indonesia Open 2019 Final, PV Sindhu vs Akane Yamaguchi HIGHLIGHTS: Silver for Sindhu as She Loses to Yamaguchi. [online] Available at: https://www.news18.com/news/badminton/indonesia-open-2019-final-highlights-pv-sindhu-vs-akane-yamaguchi-scores-and-updates-2239649.html [Accessed 4 Aug. 2019]. 
• IndiaToday.in. (2019). Japan Open 2019: PV Sindhu’s campaign ends with quarter-final loss to Akane Yamaguchi. [online] Available at: https://www.indiatoday.in/sports/badminton/story/japan-open-2019-pv-sindhu-loses-akane-yamaguchi-quarter-finals-tokyo-1573825-2019-07-26 [Accessed 4 Aug. 2019]. 
• Pringle, J., Mills, K., McAteer, J., Jepson, R., Hogg, E., Anand, N., and Blakemore, S. (2016). A systematic review of adolescent physiological development and its relationship with health-related behaviour: a protocol. Systematic Reviews, [online] 5(1). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700763/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2019]. 
• Padukone, Prakash (2019). YouTube. [online] Youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPGgkh5lYMk. 
• Higgs, C., Way, R., Harber, V., Jurbala, P. and Balyi, I. (2019). Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity 3.0 - Sport for Life. [online] Sport for Life. Available at: https://sportforlife.ca/portfolio-view/long-term-development-in-sport-and-physical-activity-3-0/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2019]. 
• Ravichandran, A., Kamath, N., Tendulkar, S., Bindra, A., Dravid, R., Gopichand, P. and Foundation, G. (2019). Go! - Penguin India. [online] Penguin India. Available at: https://penguin.co.in/book/sports/go/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2019]