The impact of Long Term Athlete Development on Swimming Teaching
What is the LTAD?
The ASA Learn to Swim Pathway has been developed to use fun and games to take children from their first splash to full competence in the water through 10 stages but is underpinned throughout by Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) principles, with clear progression between each stage.
The Long Term Athlete Development framework initiative is a cross sport teaching and coaching worldwide model and seeks to achieve optimal training throughout an athlete’s career with particular reference to the early years of development.

British Swimming has adopted the framework and this has in turn filtered down to Swim Schemes, Swim Schools and Clubs. The LTAD Model along with the Swim 21 Quality Mark has started to make a really positive impact upon the sport.
The LTAD Formalises the overall structure of an young swimmers development and if a teacher or coach is in any doubt of what sort of teaching/coaching they should be providing to a particular child/young adult — they have only to reference the Extensive LTAD National framework. This in my view has provided a major boost to the long term aspirations of British Swimming and our ability to give the best to our swimmers, and in turn produced world class athletes.
Framework Overview:
Stage 1 — FUNdamental
AGE: Female 5 to 8 years; Male 6 to 9 years.
The FUNdamental stage should be structured and fun! The emphasis is on developing basic movement literacy and fundamental movement skills across a range of activities. The skills to be developed are the ABCs (Agility, Balance, Coordination, Speed), RJT (Running, Jumping, Throwing), KGBs (Kinesthetics, Gliding, Buoyancy, Striking with the body) and CPKs (Catching, Passing, Kicking, Striking with an implement). In order to develop basic movement literacy successfully, participation should be encouraged across as many different activities as possible.
Speed, power and endurance should be developed using FUN and games. In addition, children should be introduced to the simple rules and ethics of sports. There should be well-structured programmes with proper progressions that are monitored regularly.
Stage 2 — SwimSkills: Building technique!
AGE: Female: 8 to 11 years; Male: 9 to 12 years.
During this stage young people should develop the skills of specific sports and learn how to train in a structured environment. There should be participation in complementary sports i.e. those sports, which use similar energy systems and movement patterns.
Stage 3 — Training To Train: Building the engine!
AGE: Female: 11 to 14 years; Male: 12 to 15 years.
During the Training to Train stage, there should be an emphasis on maintaining high skill levels whilst developing aerobic (endurance) capacity. This is the stage where there is greater individualisation of fitness and technical training. The focus should still be on training rather than competition and this training should be predominantly about maintaining high skills levels whilst undertaking high volume, low intensity workloads.
Stage 4 — Training To Compete: Optimising the engine!
AGE: Female: 14 to 16 years; Male: 15 to 18 years.
During the Training to Compete stage there should be a continued emphasis on maintaining high skill levels whilst focusing on maintaining high volume workloads but with increasing intensity. The number of competitions should be similar to the end of the previous stage but the emphasis should be on developing individual strengths and weaknesses through modelling and nurturing technical and tactical skills based around specific strokes or distances, but not both.
Stage 5 — Training To Win: Maximising the engine!
AGE: Female: 16+ years; Male: 18+ years.
This is the final stage of athletic preparation. The emphasis should be on specialisation and performance enhancement. All of the athletes’ physical, technical, tactical, mental, and ancillary capacities should now be fully established with the focus shifting to the optimisation of performance.
General Recommendations for Teachers of Young Participants (3–12 years)
- Below the age of 12, fitness between boys and girls is similar and should be gained through skills work. Skill development through modified games should be the focus.
- Between 7–11 years, boys’ and girls’ height and weight can vary by up to 40%. Treat each child as an individual when planning and conducting training.
- Competition can be used to motivate junior participants to improve, but the focus should be on fun and improvement, not the result.
- Incidence of injury can be high — make modifications to rules and equipment. Moderate the intensity and reduce the duration.
- Warm-up and cool downs are essential and teach good habits.
- Make training and competition fun and low stress on participants.
Useful Links
- Scottish Swimming LTAD — LONG-TERM ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT (LTAD) “HOW ATHLETES DEVELOP”
- Swimming.org
- The LTAD Framework LTAD
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