The Myth of LTAD?!

I was reminded recently about a lecture at the University of Birmingham in 2006 when the presenters had the temerity to talk to us about the “The myth of LTAD”. Up until this point I like many others had accepted LTAD as fact and had welcomed it as a great resource.  So how then could something so well respected, scientific and embraced by so many NGB’s, be a myth?

If the controversial nature of the lecture was designed to pique our interest it certainly worked; during the past five years I have been able to study this closer as it relates to my own area of research.

In making my own assessment with regards to the “Myth of LTAD” I have looked at the model primarily from the viewpoint of its evidence base and the scientific principles around which the theory is built.

The Issues surrounding the evidence base of the model are simple; during the development of the model no scientific/empirical studies were conducted to establish whether expert athletes actually develop via the four key stages proposed in LTAD. Indeed the only research conducted so far regarding how experts develop reveals different activities and stages to those proposed in LTAD (see Williams 2009). As it stands the evidence base for the model constitutes the basic elements of the Canadian Men's Alpine Ski team program spanning three Olympic cycles.

So what then of the scientific principles that form the conceptual framework of LTAD? In terms of validity, within a model, these principles should form laws that govern any observable variances in the phenomena of athlete development.

An example of this would be the so called limiting affect, in LTAD, experienced if the athlete neglects any age related critical and sensitive periods of development,  during these ‘windows of trainability’ the athlete is said to experience accelerated adaptations to specific types of training. Failing to take an advantage of these ‘windows’, it is warned, will lead to athlete never reaching their full potential. Not surprisingly this type of information is intuitively appealing to sports coaches’; and indeed the practical applications of these principles have led some to claim to be world leaders in their field.  

However on closer scrutiny it is not possible, amongst the vast LTAD literature, to find any citations of peer reviewed evidence supporting the “windows of trainability” claim. Indeed the research, non peer reviewed/ non empirical or otherwise, is so scarce that Viru et al (1999) suggest that any conclusion being drawn from them should be considered to be inaccurate.  

This lack of evidence leads to criticism of LTAD as operating in the ‘land of theory’ in that it can only claim to be reflecting ideas, theories, hunches and hypotheses about the development of an athlete. None of which is a problem, we all have theories and hunches about the world but when the model is promoted as absolute scientific fact then there is no doubt that "the myth of LTAD" is a reality. 

References

A, M, Williams & P.R Ford (2009) Promoting a skill based agenda in Olympic sports: The role of skill acquisition specialists, Journal of Sports Sciences, 27: 13, 1381 - 1392

Viru, A., Loko, J., Harro, M., Volver, A., Laaneots, L. and Viru, M. (1999) ‘Critical periods in the development of performance capacity during childhood and adolescence’, European Journal of Physical Education, 4 (1): 75–119.