CHAPTER

LONG TERM ATHLETIC

Reading Resources
14
• Canadian Long Term Athletic Development Website - http://sportforlife.ca/long-term-athlete-
development/
• Strength and Conditioning For Young Athletes – Llyod & Oliver
• Strength and Conditioning for Sports Performance – Jeffreys and Moody

Due to the demand of gymnastics growing exponentially for athletes in the last two decades, I feel the
conversation of long-term athletic development, and long-term goals are vital to have. Thankfully, there
has already been fantastic progress made in the theory, education, and practical application of this topic
within gymnastics over the last few years. The literature and research has also emerged, providing a lot
of fantastic concepts for people to learn about. 1-7

Long-term athletic development for gymnasts has many facets. Some of these including skill
development, physical preparation, flexibility development, mental or sports psychology skills,
emotional maturity, and more.

Some of the most experienced and most knowledgeable gymnastics coaches have shown us first-
hand what proper long-term athletic development can do for a gymnast. I have witnessed coaches
dedicate 15+ years to their gymnasts, helping an athlete go from preschool classes to national level
competition. With dedication, passion, and an incredible amount of patience, it is inspiring to see how
much gymnastics can do for a young athlete in pursuit of very big goals. Among many things, one reason
for the ability of gymnasts to have a 20-year career in the sport is because their coaches, parents, and

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medical providers embraced long-term athletic development over only seeing immediate, short-term
goals.

Unfortunately, I have seen on numerous occasions, times when the opposite of long-term athletic
development models was being used. I have seen times when gymnasts are doing skills that they clearly
are not prepared for, are doing strength programs they are not even close to showing the capacity to
tolerate or are at meets competing routines that they are clearly not ready for.

The best coaches that I know in our sport always prioritize the slow, methodical, and perfectionist-
based approach to gymnastics skill development. They are not afraid to hold gymnast backs on doing
challenging skills to hard surfaces, without spots, or in competitions, if they are not absolutely ready for
it.

This is in a simplistic form is what “long-term athletic development” refers to. It is the ability of everyone,
including the gymnast, to not only look at the immediate day, week, or season level building blocks in
gymnastics.

It is the ability to look critically at both at the present training program goals, but also the steps that
must be in place for multiple years down to reach larger goals a gymnast says they have. It is taking the
time to build lower body strength over three years, so that when the athlete is in high school, they can
tolerate high impact vault or floor tumbling passes in optional gymnastics. It is continuously practicing,
and mastering, basics so that a gymnast can execute skills with clean form instead of throwing skills. It is
making decisions about what skills will be competed in a competition, knowing that the gymnast has to
practice and show those skills for the next eight months and possibly next few years.

The research is supportive of the need for all sports, but especially sports like gymnastics to be
hypervigilant for thinking about the long-term health and career of young children. Gymnastics is
highlighted in the research due to its cultural tendency to make athlete specialize in just gymnastics
from a very young age, and participate in year-round training. More on these topics will be discussed in
the next chapter.

Specific strategies outlined in research to practice with a long-term athletic development model include

• The delaying of training and competing high force or high repetition sports skills with young
athletes. In baseball, this may be not allowing young athletes to throw max effort pitches, for
many innings per week. In Olympic Weightlifting, this may be not allowing young athletes to
perform one rep max lifts for a period of time, or train 4-5 times per week. In gymnastics, this
may be not allowing young athletes to do high skill dismounts, tumbling passes, ring strength, or
release moves in their early years, or train many more hours per week greater their age.

• The need for progressive strength training, and more broadly the need for comprehensive
physical preparation programs, to be at the heart of youth sport training. The recommended
approaches are a blend of sport-specific exercises and resistance training, in a model that
promotes intrinsic motivation, team cohesion, and fun over extrinsic motivation, individualistic
mindsets, and only high-pressure workout settings 2-5

• The need to understand that due to the large variability in the rates of development and
maturation in athletes, a broad range of “early vs late bloomers” exist for sports performance.
2-5
Part of the benefit to long-term athletic development models realizes that just because five
athletes are the same chronological age, say 12 years old, they will have five completely different

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 developmental ages. Everyone in youth sports must realize this, and individualize training based
upon this reality while taking extra caution not to compare athletes based on age-based criteria

• The need to regularly place the athletes physical and mental health at the forefront of training
decisions, knowing that day to day training decisions always take less of a priority compared to
longer term goals. Habits and practices within the training day will influence these long-term
goals, but within the context of health-related injuries, a broader approach must be remembered
at all times with young athletes.

The gymnastics coaches who I know are the best at long-term athletic development seem to embody
all of these factors outlined in research. They strive to maintain an environment discussed in the first
section of this book. One that has high expectations but remains based on intrinsic motivation, team
cohesion, and fun existing in training over extrinsic motivation, individualistic approaches to training
that isolates or compares athletes, and has a high-pressure nature for perfection at all times.

These coaches spend hours, and hours per week on skill basics, drills, shaping, strength, global physical
preparation, injury prevention circuits, and sports psychology training. Some of highest level coaches
I have been lucky to work with have reported to me that as much as 50% - 60% of their time in the
gym per week with their best gymnasts is spent on these areas, not actually doing high-level skills
repetitively.

They force a gymnast to master the foundational elements of skills before they ever move on to
hard surfaces or competition scenarios. They are also not afraid to change skills, modify routines, or
scratch and delay meet competition, should the situation arise from physical injury or lack of mental
preparation.

The best part is, is that due to their incredible culture and trusting relationship with their gymnasts,
the gymnasts they work with understand and trust their decisions, because their coaches take time
to fully explain their rationale. This allows gymnasts to “trust the process” as many coaches say. This
concept links back all the way to the first chapter, where research indicated that more transformational
leadership styles that athletes control, input, and a sense of trust in their coaches correlated to higher
levels of adherence to training, happiness, and the ability to approach hard challenges.

All of these decisions that support long-term athletic development are not only to maintain a gymnast’s
health and safety as the priority, but also to guide an athlete along the long-term path that yields the
highest potential of gymnastics success. In its basic essence, long-term athletic development is the
practical application of these concepts to reach a bigger goal down the road.

There is a constant, daily struggle to teach athletes the value of delayed gratification in gymnastics.
Getting a gymnast to realize that progress in gymnastics comes from incredible amounts of discipline
and patience over the years, not weeks, is hard. Not allowing a gymnast to move on to harder skills,
or “throw” a skill for the shear sense of doing it, is also very challenging. Ultimately, we all know not
allowing this to happen is in their best interest. A a coache and medical provider, I understand all too
well the patience and struggle that goes into applying this concept every day in training.

Teaching the values and culture level lessons from earlier in this book is vital to the process of long-term
goals. These more “human” level characteristics forge athletes who can train continuously despite daily
challenge, frustration, adversity, and setbacks. The ones who can maintain intrinsic motivation and have
the mental and emotional capacity to work through problems every day are the athletes who typically
achieve the highest levels of performance.

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The other important aspects of long-term athletic development built off these human-level
characteristics are the nitty gritty parts to gymnastics training. Daily and weekly skill basics, shaping,
application of corrections, physical preparation, flexibility, injury prehab, overcoming fears with mental
training, recovery care, are all the much less exciting parts to gymnastics training. Training fun skills,
being able to compete and do well, and sharing excitement of landing something for the first time, are
all much more exciting. However, we have to realize that the only way these more exciting moments
happen consistently over time is because of all the grunt work put into the less appealing areas
mentioned above.

There are many times when skills are not ready for competition or are unsafe to perform. This could be
for physical or psychological reasons. I can’t tell readers how many times I have been at meets and have
seen gymnasts throw skills they are not prepared. I sadly remember times when as a younger coach, I
made this error with more serious risks than I care to admit.

There are always boarder line cases. The thrill of competing a new skill, and everyone sharing the
success of hitting a challenging routine, is a huge part of what makes gymnastics so incredible. But I am
talking more about a blatantly obviously lack of technical, physical, and mental preparation jeopardizing
safety in a competition setting.

As a coach or someone who cares for that athlete, why in the world are we allowing this practice to
continue in gymnastics? Why are we risking injury, developing mental blocks, and building terrible
technical habits for a score, a meet, or a potential trophy? Unless this is a very high-level competition
with career level goals hanging in the balance (college showcase for scholarship, championships,
national/international level peak meets), I struggle to see the risk to reward ratio being in the positive.
These much larger meets are rarer occurrences, and I fear people are treating every practice or meet
like this.

The short-term gratification of surviving through a non-technically mastered skill (and I use the word
“surviving” on purpose) almost always comes back to haunt the gymnast down the road. It shows up as
poor technical foundations that cause a plateau in skill level, an overuse or acute injury, or frustrations
from gymnasts and coaches when limited progress occurs.

Along with the more technical and ground level ideas mentioned above, I want to expand some ideas
about athlete monitoring I discussed briefly in the last chapter. I want to dive into this more, as it has
massive application to this concept of long-term athletic development.
I will mention some main concepts, but encourage readers to check out the available research, 7-13 as
well as the fantastic book Monitoring Training and Performance in Athletes by McGuigan for much more
information.

On a day to day “micro” scale, I think there is simple athlete monitoring ideas that can help substantially
in the larger picture for long-term athletic development. One of the most helpful things I have started
doing with gymnasts is basic daily tracking and monitoring.
By this, I mean having our competitive gymnastics team journal some very simple aspects to how they
feel before each practice. Each of our gymnasts has an individual journal with all of their strength
programs, educational handouts, and space for note-taking. What is also inside the journal is basic daily
tracking sheets. I included this basic template above for readers to download.

For the athletes, I think it is incredibly important to be in tune with how they feel in the gym, and also to
appreciate how outside gym (stress levels, sleep, homework, hydration, nutrition, etc.) influences their

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training.

For the coaching staff, it gives us insight into how they are responding to the training we put together
and gives us a basic insight into how things are going.

1. Hours of Sleep

The first thing I have everyone log is how many hours of sleep they got the night before. It’s one
of the most important aspects of recovery, allowing time for the body to heal, grow, to adapt.
At first many of the gymnasts didn’t think too much of it, but now everyone makes a direct
connection between how they feel, how training is going, and how much they are sleeping. 90%
of the time, athletes realize how little they are sleeping when they think about this connection,
and make a positive change not to feel so drained. It also many times fosters a positive discussion
on time management, prioritizing homework completion, and not using electronic devices right
before trying to fall asleep.

2. Perceived Soreness (0 – 10 Scale)

For me, perceived soreness is more a measure of muscular fatigue that relates to the training
the day before. Whether it results from training skills, routines, strength, or cardio, overall levels
of soreness are critical. I describe this to athletes as physical soreness, with 0 being fine, and 10
being cripplingly sore. For one, it gives insight into how athletes responded to the last day or days
of cumulative training. Secondarily, I think it also gives psychological insight into how a gymnast
may approach the day of training ahead.

It’s inevitable that gymnasts will be sore from hard training. In a way, we want this to occur to
make sure adaptation is being chased. Remember, the proper implementation of training can
enhance performance and also be protective against injury as more fitness develops. I’m equally
as concerned about the gymnast who is incredibly sore despite light practice the day before, as I
am for the gymnast who is not even a little sore despite very hard training the day before.

However, we need to keep a very close eye on too high of soreness levels, global fatigue sparking
overtraining syndrome, and overuse injury risk escalating. From being an athlete myself, coaching
a lot of athletes, and seeing many gymnasts for medical-based rehab, this aspect has been really
helpful to understand what’s going on each day or across a week of training.

3. Perceived Fatigue (0-10 Scale)

In parallel to soreness levels above, I also have gymnasts give a perceived rating of fatigue. In
my mind, this is less of a physical measure of soreness, and more of a mental measure of how
“drained” a gymnast feels. For me, the soreness levels reflect the actual training – recovery
cycles and workload. I think the measure of perceived fatigue factors in many more pieces to
global stress levels. This can include school, homework, family life, social lives, friends, and other
stressors related to energy levels.

Together, these perceived soreness and fatigue levels are beneficial for the athletes to reflect on,
and coaches to understand. Often I will tweak or individualize the daily assignment if someone
is going through a rough patch. Other times I will push a bit harder with training if someone has
been feeling great lately. On a global level, if the whole team feels excellent or feels very fatigued,

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 I reflect back on the training to learn more.

4. Resting Heart Rate

Resting Heart Rate is a slightly more involved marker for, picking up overtraining syndrome, or
general stress levels. There is mixed research, but if someone has a true elevation of resting heart
rate despite consistent or reduction in training, it might be something to look further into. These
measures are taken first thing in the morning, and a rested state before training.

It’s relatively simple, they sit still for a few minutes then measure their heart rate for 1 minute
upon waking up or before practice starts, then log it in their daily journal. For most of our
athletes, it’s more just another tool I use to help them reflect on their training. Typically, most of
our athletes only do the pre-practice measurement. For more advanced or older athletes, I have
them do it first thing when they wake up in the morning and before practice for more data points.

In reality, there are much more involved markers to this such as Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
or other things known as “internal markers” of training load. This is just what I have found the
easiest for me to look into, and for the gymnasts to quickly do every day.

Academic Resources

For those nerdier people like myself, there are a few excellent resources that I would recommend
checking into. I have learned a lot from reading more on this material, and enjoy keeping up to date as
technology evolves. Personally, I’m looking into trying to measure global Rate of Perceived Exertion
following training sessions, aligning it with objective workloads, and seeing if I can build of Tim Gabbett’s
great research (find articles here and here) to apply it in gymnastics.

I mentioned this in an earlier chapter, but global training RPE simply has athletes rate the total training
sessions challenge, from 1-10, and that number is multiplied by the total minutes of training. This gives
one larger number that summarizes subjective daily workload. This is tracked day to day, and as weeks
or months continue allows for constructive insight along with all the data points mentioned above. It
also has been allowing gymnasts to be in tune with needing to be accountable for their training and
recovery practices.

These books dive way more into internal and external training load monitoring, stress physiology, and
adaptation principles. For more, check out these books

• Monitoring Training and Performance in Athletes – McGuigan (click for Amazon link)
• Strength and Conditioning for Youth Athletes – Lloyd and Oliver (click for Amazon link)
• Advanced Strength and Conditioning: An Evidenced-Based Approach – Turner and Comfort

My advice is to start with the simple basics of monitoring. Make up some basic tracking sheets, then
teach the athletes to start with hours of sleep, perceived soreness, perceived fatigue, and resting heart
rate.

Training Age, Tracking Growth, and Development in Gymnasts

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On a larger scale, being able to track growth and development is extremely helpful for thinking in a long-
term athletic development model. Thankfully, there has been a lot of research to help understand this
concept about youth athletes, with some even investigating gymnastics. 14 – 18

The Canadian Sport For Life website has a lot of work in this area, as well as people like Istvan Bylai and
Richard Way. I’m going to offer some of my thoughts based on what I have read and studied so far, but I
certainly have more to learn on the topic. I encourage people to read the resources for themselves.

These include newly release book Strength and Conditioning For Young Athletes, Bayli and Way’s
fantastic article on The Role of Monitoring Growth in Long-Term Athlete Development, and the
Canadian Sports For Life Resource Page for more information.

Chronological Age vs. Developmental Age

This was outlined above, but due to its incredible importance requires a section of its own. One of
the most important ideas I have applied to both gymnastics coaching and clinical work based on long-
term athletic development is the huge difference between an athlete’s chronological age and their
developmental age. Chronological age refers to an athlete’s years since birth, where developmental age
refers to an athletes degree of physical, mental, emotional maturation. 20-21

This is critical to understand if you work with gymnasts or younger athletes.

It all depends on their individual developmental profiles, and when they happened to start going
through their growing phases. Speaking regarding their musculoskelatal, psychological, endocrine, and
neurological systems, there are some pretty big differences between a 9-year old and a 12-year old. This
greatly influences the state of their motor skill development, their psychological and emotional status,
how much or what type of training they can tolerate.

Tracking growth rates and dimensions of height can help give insight to the tempo of maturation an
athlete is going through. 21 The rate of growth and development can be extremely variable from athlete
to athlete. There are more complex ways medical professionals test this like with bone x rays, in-depth
growth factor tracking, and endocrine testing. But the feasibility, and applicability, of this in a gymnastics
training setting is obviously a challenge.

Tracking height and body dimensions are much more practical ways to apply this concept simply, to get a
general sense of the athlete’s developmental age and growth tempo.
As is seen in Bayli’s work, they offer the noninvasive and simple method of using body height length to
plot growth curves that help follow these concepts. It’s based on measuring dimensions like standing
height, sitting height, and wingspan lengths at regular intervals, and then plotting growth curves based
off of the information. This gives insight into the rate of arm growth, leg growth, and torso growth. With
some education, training, and practice both coaches and healthcare could easily be involved in this with
gymnasts.

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 Rapid Growth and Relationship To Injury Risk / Movement “Recalibration.”

Related to knowing rates of height change and an athlete’s developmental age, is the idea that there
are certain times when athletes will go through rapid changes in growth. These are commonly called
“growth spurts” by most people.

There is generally a time when an athlete jas the most rapid change in growth or development, known
as a “Peak Height Velocity” (PHV). By tracking an athlete’s overall height, torso length, arm length, and
leg length from an early age, you can notice significant changes in patterns to growth spurts and possibly
PHV.

The reason this has a massive application to gymnastics training is due to some literature suggesting
the risk of injury is much higher in times of rapid growth. 21-26 Although it’s hard to calculate precisely,
many medical researchers routine that during these phases of growth, overuse growth plate injuries and
many other issues in performance accompany rapid growth periods. (The Sports Medicine Handbook of
Gymnastics also has some great information about this for gymnastics specifically if interested).

This concept was highlighted in the flexibility chapter, but here are a few more essential thoughts about
why this may occur.

1) From a muscle and skeletal systems point of view, the tolerance of new developing tissue in
bones, tendons, and cartilage may be lower during periods of rapid growth. As new tissue is laid
down, its ability to accept load isn’t nearly as high as fully developed bone, tendon, or cartilage.
With a sport like gymnastics, it can be very easy for the forces of skills to be greater than the
tissues ability to handle the load, leading to and overuse type injuries. This is commonly where
issues like Severs disease, Osgood Schlatters, “Gymnast Wrist,” lower back pain, or other injuries
may pop up. Long bones may rapidly grow, and the associated connective tissue in muscles,
tendons, and ligaments may not be able to proportionally keep up leading to injury and drops in
performance if training is not modified.

2) From a neurological point of view, the body rapidly changes dimension, shape, and density
with these growth spurts. I refer to it as a “recalibration” phase that has to occur for the brain
and nervous system to understand these changes in length or dimensions. It’s very common
for gymnasts to go through a stage of feeling awkward with gymnastics movements that were
once fluid. They tend to feel very uncoordinated and noticed a decrease in skill performance for
things that were once easy during this time frame. Being able to understand this concept helps
me quite a bit both in the gym coaching and in the clinic treating gymnastics patients. It allows
me to explain why some injuries occur, and why I encourage so much proactive work in younger
age groups. I think it’s important gymnasts themselves know what’s going on during growth. It’s
important for them to be aware of the start of an injury during this phase. Frustration with skill
work, higher rates of fatigue, and the “recalibration” process happening in a changing body can all
make a big impact on injury risk during training.

3) From more of a gymnastics sport point of view, the 9-13 age range is very commonly a time when
some gymnasts start to think about moving up in the levels rapidly. Many are trying to advance
their skills in optional level gymnastics. Usually, gymnasts identified as being naturally talented
are recognized at a young age, and pushed rapidly along the training di,fficulty continuum. This
move up in levels typically comes along with more training hours, more skill repetitions, and
more days per week training. The gymnast is also likely training higher level optional skills that

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 are more demanding on the ranges of motion for joints, require more strength, and also may
have higher peak forces associated with them (double back versus back 1/1 on floor). Again, this
concept has a big role to play in keeping track their training volume and preventing overload
injuries or burnout. In quite a few younger patients I work with, shoulder, leg, and lower back
injuries became the most problematic during their biggest growth spurt.

Performance Point - Why This Matters For Gymnasts

The point of this entire section, aside from education, is to highlight the idea that I think in gymnastics
we can use all of this great information about tracking growth and development in our athletes for
positive gain. It can be combined and used as a method to hopefully predict times when a gymnast will
struggle with skill performance, an elevated injury, and more frustration in training. Based on knowing
this period exists, we can have an educational conversation with our gymnasts and also modify training
to keep them both productive and safe. It’s inevitable that growing pain and soreness will occur, but our
primary goal is to prevent much more pressing issues. Injury issues like stress fractures and growth plate
injuries that often plague a gymnast long term, and also a large drop in gymnastics skill abilities.

I feel being aware of chronological age vs. developmental age, and tracking growth tempo through
objective data from a young age, is extremely important for everyo.ne in gymnastics. We can use this
information and build it into more screening and preventative measures, to hopefully combat injury
rates and plan for long-term development. I feel a good team of coaches, parents, strength coaches, and
healthcare working together can go a long way here to help gymnastics in this department.
Concluding Thoughts

As coaches, medical providers, and parents we must instill this value of long-term athletic development
in our gymnasts. It requires we lead by example, basing our training decisions and rationale for those
decisions looking at the bigger picture as well as our day to day habits. This will allow the expectations
we set in our culture of doing the necessary work to progress in a long-term fashion.

If we have solid moral foundations and care about our athlete’s health and well-being ahead of scores
and trophies, this will occur. It requires people make the adult decision to hold off on taking risks
pushing through injury or competing skills that are not ready for meets. We will also prioritize and build
a positive culture around technical proficiency, physical preparation, strength programs, mastering
basics, and respecting the long road of discipline gymnastics requires to reach high levels.

Again, this all comes down to the values that we have, and the character we forge, discussed in the
first section of the book. It requires we look at our intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations, our humility
versus ego levels, and desire to seek out continuing education from many different interdisciplinary
professionals in gymnastics.

Our actions related to long-term athletic development in gymnasts directly reflect these values, and in
turn, dictate of gymnasts will model our behaviors.

We must make it clear within our training cultures that there is a significant amount of work and
dedication that goes into progress in the sport of gymnastics. Not only physical work, but mental and
emotional work to approach and handle inevitable adversity. Our expectations must reflect the need
to show adequate preparation before moving on to higher levels of training. Gymnasts must also be
emotionally and psychologically resilient to endure the long road gymnastics careers have.

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Communication must regularly occur about long-term goals, short-term steps to get there, and how
daily training or recovery practices pave the way for long-term results. Without clear roadmaps, goals
being set, and daily habits, athletes often get caught up in a whirlwind of “the next best thing” and do not
follow a set plan for gymnastics success. Making sure that the next steps are planned for regarding skill
and level progression are essential.

As a former athlete, current coach, and medical provider I 100% understand that there are times
during a gymnast’s career that they are going to be required to push through risky situations or nagging
injuries. I had my fair share of times when big meets required me to weigh the risk to rewards.

I have also been involved in the collaborative decision process of trying to “get through” a big meet when
an injury is being managed, especially when a lot is riding on the line. Such examples include very big
national, championship, or qualification meets, as well as an athlete, is nearing the end of their career.

I will say openly; I think that these situations are very few and far between. They shouldn’t happen
nearly as much as they do in our sport, especially when it comes to younger athletes who have many
years of gymnastics ahead of them. There must to be a constant voice of reason for the long-term effects
decisions we make have on the health entire gymnastics career of athletes.

There is almost always a larger goal down the road that is more important than the immediate situation
we are facing. It is a very tough conversation to have with gymnasts, coaches, and parents, but it is a
necessary one.

I highly encourage everyone in gymnastics to adopt a longer-term athletic development mindset,

I think that this not only builds an incredible culture in a gymnastics training environment, but directly
helps forge the priority ladder of health first, gan great people second, and great gymnasts third.

Key Take Away Points

• Echoing the points made in the last few chapters related to medical management of injuries, due
to the sport of gymnastics rapidly increasing in difficulty, all parties in the sport must consider the
role of long term athletic development for young athletes

• Long-term athletic development, as well as the concept of “early vs. late bloomers” are essential
for those in gymnastics to consider. The concept of chronological age (years since b.irth) is very
different than biological age (progress of growth and development) must also be factored in

• Long Term Athletic Development models incorporate appropriate skill progression, mastery of
basics, physical preparation, delaying of high force or high repetition skills, and making decisions
in training with a framework of long-term goals in mind

• One of the best tools for the day to day implementation of long-term athletic development comes
through subjective and objective monitoring easy to monitor pieces of training include
o Hours of sleep

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 o Perceived soreness
o Perceived fatigue
o Resting heart rate
o
• Bigger picture implementations of long-term athletic development comes through the tracking of
growth and development. This includes the monthly tracking of
o Standing height
o Sitting height
o Wing span

• This type of tracking can be very helpful to look for rapid periods of growth, known as Peak
Height Velocity. This period is very important as it comes with rapid bone growth, often losses in
flexibility, challenges with neurological control and power output, and psychological/emotional
distress as athletes are struggling to adapt to a growing and changing body

• Athletes who are going through rapid growth spurts should be closely monitored for injury, and
possibly removed from high pressure / high impact training. This may help with getting through
high-risk time periods that can cause large problems for injury risk, performance losses, and
burnout

References

1. Lloyd RS., et al. Long-Term Athletic Development, Part 1.: A Pathway for All Youth. Journal of
Strength and Conditioning Research. 2015. May; 29(5): 1439 – 1450
2. Lloyd RS., et al. Long-Term Athletic Development, Part 2: Barriers to Success and Potential
Solutions. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2015. May; 29(5): 1451 – 1464
3. Ford P., De Ste Croix M., Lloyd R., et al. The Long-Term Athletic Development model:
Physiological evidence and application. J Sports Sci. 2011 Feb; 29(4): 389 – 402.
4. Granacher U., Borde R. Effects of Sports Specific Training During the Early Stages of Long
Term Athlete Development on Physical Fitness, Body Composition, Cognitive, and Academic
Performances. Front Physiol. 2017; 8: 810
5. Lloyd RS., Cronin JB., Faigenbaum AD., et al. National Strength and Conditioning Assotiaion
Position Statement on Long Term Athletic Development. J Strength Cond Res. 2016 Jun; 30(6):
1491 – 1509
6. Granacher U., Lesinski M., Muehlbauer T., et al. Effects of Resistance Training in Youth Athletes
on Muscular Fitness and Athletic Performance: A Conceptual Model for Long-Term Athlete
Development. Front Physiol. 2016; 7: 164
7. Bourdon PC., et al. Monitoring Athlete Training Loads: Consensus Statement. IJSPT 2017, 12, S2
– 161 – S2 - 170
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Implications for Practice. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2017 Apr;12(Suppl 2): S227-S234
9. Gabbett TJ, Nassis GP, Oetter E, et al. The athlete monitoring cycle: a practical guide to
interpreting and applying training monitoring data. Br J Sports Med Published Online First: 23
June 2017. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2016-097298
10. Lee EC., Fragala MS., Kavouras SA., et al. Biomarkers in Sport and Exercise: Tracking Health,
Performance, and Recovery in Athletes. J Strength Cond Res. 2017 Oct; 31(10): 2920 – 2937
11. Robertson S., Barlett JD., Gastin PB. Red, Amber, or Green? Athlete Monitoring in Team Sport:
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