Balyi's Long Term Athlete Development Model

Having a LTAD (long term athlete development) model ensures athletes and students optimise their learning and performance for now, and more importantly for the future. Athletes who specialise in a sport too early, have too much competition or haven't mastered their fundamental motor skills will never reach their full potential, will peak late (or not at all), and are more likely to retire early and lose intrinsic motivation.

In this blog I will describe my understanding of each stage of Balyi's LTAD model. I have studied Balyi's model in many other classes and it seems to be the choice when it comes to LTAD models. I have studied other models such as Bompa's generic models, but they have never received as much attention as Balyi. I believe Balyi's model is the optimal chose for a LTAD model if choosing one. Every time I've studied the model there has been a different number of stages noted, sometimes stages are combined, assumed or just not mentioned. I will combine and list all 7 that I know below.




Active Start
This stage isn't mentioned in some literature when describing the Balyi model. This is possibly because it just seen as a precursor to the beginning of the model.
The Active Start stage is people aged 0-6, and is used to develop gross motor skills, build the body, build confidence and self esteem, enhance gross motor skills and develop social skills.

FUNdmental
In this stage 6-10 year old people develop their fundamental movement skills through fun games that have a focus on the ABCs; agility, balance, coordination and speed. Correct jumping, running and throwing skills are also a focus of this stage. Ethics, rules and some body weight strength training are introduced at this stage (Balyi, 2001). Children at this stage are encourage to participate in as many sports as possible but the purpose of this stage is to establish the general basis for decision making for later specialisation. There is no periodisation at this stage.

Learning to Train
This stage is designed to be for per-puberty athletes to begin to learn technical and tactical skills and to increase the amount of sessions they perform. Ancillary capacities is introduced at this stage, teaching athletes the importance of warm ups, recovery, focusing, movements, nutrition etc. Athletes are still improving their ABCs and other skills at this stage.

Training to Train
This stage is designed for boys between the ages of 10 and 14 and girls from 10 to 13. In this stage athletes begin to learn the basic skills of a specific sport (Balyi, 2001). The competition to training ratio increase, to around 60:40 or to 75:25 depending on the literature you read. Also these ratios vary depending on the sport and the individual. Athletes are playing to win while in competition but the main learning objective for this stage is to refine the basics of the sport. This age is crucial for development and athletes will never reach their full potential and might develop late if they miss this phase or do it too early (Balyi, 2001).

Training to Compete
This stage is for boys aged from 14 to 18 and girls from 13 to 17. In this stage training and preparation becomes very specialised for individual's needs, strengths and weaknesses. The training to competition ratio increases in this phase to 50:50, with half the training being competition specific training. The other 50% of the training is focused on fitness, and technical and tactical skills (Balyi, 2001).

Training to Win
This phase is for athletes from 17-18+. This phase is all about maximising performance for major competitive events. The volume and intensity are increased to a high level with enough rest to recover and prevent burnout. The competition to training ratio is increased to 25:75, with the training component, as described in the stage above, containing competition specific training. All technical mental, physical, tactical should now all be fully developed and established (Balyi, 2001).

Retirement and Retainment
This stage begins after athletes have retired from a high level of sport, permanently. This begins the chance for ex-athletes to give back to their sport, giving their knowledge and skill in a variety of ways, such as coaching, the media, management etc. (Balyi, 2001). This stage also gives the chance for athletes to enjoy sport at a more informal, less serious level. Example of these less formal situations could be playing the sport with children and family or joining local, social competitions.





Reference List

Balyi, I. (2001). Sport System Building and Long-term Athlete Development in British 
 Columbia Canada: SportsMed, BC.

Photo Credits

 Istvan Balyi (Malmo IdrottsAkademi, Admin)