Directions & Solutions
Building Future Leaders
The VCDM aims to apply our LTAD model to the Canadian landscape. The Solutions page is dedicated to offering innovative ways to grow our sport and help us build Future Leaders. We aim to build leaders at every level and we need your help!
Help us celebrate the successes by sending us your stories of how you've implemented these solutions and grown our sport, we'll put it on our NEWS section.
Also, if you have some new ideas for improving our development model, and adding new solutions, please send us a note at email@example.com
What is LTAD?
Human development from birth to adulthood is a continuous process. To understand the process better, experts divide human development into distinct stages with specific characteristics; these are called stages of development.
In Canadian sport, experts have identified several stages of development, each with its own physical, mental, emotional, and cognitive characteristics. This is our Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model, and it’s the basis for the optimal training and competition kids need to enjoy sport the most and perform their best.
Why do we need the LTAD model?
- Because participation in recreational sport and physical activity has been declining and physical education programs in schools are being marginalized.
- Because the international performances of Canadian athletes have been declining in some sports.
- Because other sports are having trouble identifying and developing the next generation of international athletes.
Because NOT matching skills and activities to a stage of development has serious negative consequences, and Canadians and the Canadian sport system have been suffering from them for some time. To mention just a few of them:
• Children don’t have fun
• They develop bad habits because of the over-emphasis on winning
• Their skill development is poor
• They don’t reach their optimal performance level
• Many burn out and drop out of sport
*The 2006 "Volleyball for Life" Manual maintains many of the goals and directions Volleyball Canada pursues. However, the revisions provided here on the VCDM website are the most up to date recommendations for training, competition and recovery within each stage.