Long Term Athlete Development Plan

Phase 2: Late Childhood (8–10 Years Old) 

US Ski & Snowboard — Alpine Training System 

Biological Age	Late Childhood
Chronological Age	8–10 years old
Time in Sport	2–5 years in sport
Training Volume	150 hours per season, 2–3 sessions per week
Summer / Off-Season	0–5 days

Training Elements 

• Coached Freeskiing: 60% 

• Coached Drills: 20% 

• Coached Gate Training: 10% 

• Competition Simulation: 10% 

• Freeski with Friends & Family: As much as enjoyable 

• Complementary Sports: Participate in many sports and activities. Active participation in coordination or balance-based sports. Participation in team sports builds teamwork, ethics, and fair play. 

Physical Fitness Domain 

• General Concepts: Increase play to develop and enhance specific elements of physical fitness in open environments. 

• Growth and Development: Body continues to develop into adult-like proportions. Rate of growth slows, strength increases, and ability to perform fine motor skills increases. 

• Endurance: Continue to establish foundations of endurance through sustained activity and play. Add duration to activities and games. Manage duration of activity by introducing time-structured games and activities. 

• Mobility: Introduce and practice mobility exercises through unorganized play and some structured activities. 

• Strength: Continue with whole body activities and exercises. Introduce more targeted focus on specific body movements. 

• Power: Use fun playful activities to enhance body awareness, spatial awareness and object manipulation. Incorporate activities that develop quickness (0-10 sec bursts). 

• Motor Skills: Increase ABC through fluidity of and range-of-motion in simple activities. 

• Nutrition, Hydration, Recovery: Basic athletic and healthy nutrition concepts are addressed by parents, child, coaches and club. Proper rest and sleep habits are formed. 

Technical & Tactical Domain 

• General Focus: Adventure stage – Skiing all terrain, exploring the mountain. 

• Athletic Stance and Balance: Can balance on the outside ski. Can ski medium radius turns with parallel skis while maintaining balance. Upper body (pelvis and torso) orients down the fall line. 

• Skills (Rotary, Edging, Pressure): Skier demonstrates outside ski dominance throughout the turn, and becomes aware of the skis orientation on the snow. Skier demonstrates rotary, edging and pressure skills individually and within a ski turn. 

• Turn Strategies: Turn size and shape is dictated by the skier. Activities emphasize a wide variety of turn shapes and sizes. Athlete is able to make short, fast rhythmical turns. 

• Coordination of Movements: Leg rotation is smooth that may be complimented with leg flexion and extension movements. Lower body starts to show separation from upper body. Upper body shows rotation discipline complimented with an arm carriage that may facilitate contributory pole action. 

• Terrain: Tactics are learned through self-discovery by skiing around the mountain and adapting to different terrain. Respects and skis challenging terrain or difficult snow conditions. 

• Tech/GS and Slalom: Continue drill course focus around skill development. Begins to work on tucking in GS turns. 

• Speed/DH and SG: Refining tuck on increasingly steeper terrain. Focus is on body position and balance while in a tucked position. Jumping of any type is considered exciting. 

• Course Sets: Round turns are utilized in GS and slalom. Able to link turns of variable turn size and radius. 

• Competition Strategies: Focus on skill development as a competition. Inter-club events and a possible local state competition. Fun comps such as dual, obstacle and kombi formats. 

Equipment Selection & Preparation Domain 

• General Focus: Learn about function and variations between types of equipment. 

• Skis: 1 pair of skis is sufficient for this group. Head height with a variation based on height, weight, and skill level. Introduce ski preparation. 

• Boots: Proper boot fit with soft forward flex for ankle movement to facilitate a balanced athletic stance. 

• Protection: Helmet required. Older athletes may need shin/arm protection. 

• Poles: Standard length forearm horizontal with pole tip in snow. 

Mental Training Domain 

• Goal Setting: Clarify how to set goals. Describe which sport related activities and experiences cause enjoyment. Collaborate with supportive individuals and groups who can help interpret and organize the goal setting process. 

• Team, Training & Competition: Engage with all team members to demonstrate fair and generous behavior. Perform training exercises that facilitate fun and skill acquisition. Perform in competitions to have fun, acquire skills, and to learn teamwork and sportsmanship. 

• Self-Talk: Describe which thoughts support confidence to arise during performance related experiences. Identify self talk patterns and their affect on attitude and motivation. 

• Mental Imagery: Visualize the sport environment and how to perform sport related skills. Visualize how to perform training exercises, and in competition, before executing. 

• Intensity: Identify when intensity levels increase. Practice taking deep breaths to regulate increased levels of intensity. 

• Focus: Practice body language and non-verbal cues to increase sustained focus during training sessions. 

Competition Domain 

• General Focus: Compete for fun. 

• Competition Types: Club based local events that are innovative with focus on fun and skill progression. Some informal interclub competitions. 

• Disciplines: Participate in U10 disciplines (GS, SL, Kombi), SkillsQuest and NASTAR. 

• Race Season and Volume: Emphasize training time over events. 10 or less event days per season. 

• Race to Training Ratio: N/A