Photo: Alpine Canada's Simon Fournier Train to Race

Key Concepts

  • Entrance into this stage is dependent on skiing skill and physical fitness progress and beyond the adolescent growth spurt.
  • Participants enter this stage based on individual commitment, volume and intensity of training, and performance results.
  • Participate in year-round, high-intensity, individual event specific training with specialized coaching in a dedicated training environment.  
  • Specialize in one sport and participate in complementary sports for the development of ski specific skills.
  • Learn to perform skills under a variety of competitive conditions.
  • Compete at a national level and develop international competition skills and abilities.
  • Ski racers have a periodized yearly training plan, and ski racers are encouraged to complete sport-specific technical, tactical and physical fitness training nine to 12 times per week, with four to six of those training days on-snow. 
  • Optimize recovery and regeneration with scheduled (periodized) time for regular recovery and developing mental fitness.
  • Optimize and balance sport, work/school, and family/friend life obligations. 
  • Athletes may transfer from one skiing discipline to another sport during this stage; transferring athletes may require remedial technical/tactical development to compete.
REFERENCES:

ACA LTAD Training and Competition Focus Matrix

ACA LTAD Training and Competition Volume Matrix

ACA LTAD  SX Progression Matrix

ACA LTAD Para-Alpine Progression Matrix

Sport for Life - Long Term Development in Sport & Physical Activity 3.0. Higgs, Colin & Way, Richard & Harber, Vicki, Jurbala, Paul, Bayli, Istvan. (2019). Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity 3.0. Canadian Sport for Life. ISBN: 978-1-927921-62-3.

Long Term Athlete Development Information for Parents presented by the Coaching Association of Canada

Actively Engaging Women and Girls

Sport for Life No Accidental Champions: LTAD for Athletes
with a Disability (2nd Edition)

Sport for Life for all Newcomers to Canada

Sport for Life Aboriginal Long–Term Participant Development Pathway 1.1