American Development Model
The American Development Model, somewhat ironically but not that surprisingly, started in Canada. Victoria resident Istvan Balyi and other smart people within their national hockey program figured out that having six year olds play full-contact hockey games was not the best way to develop skilled hockey players. From there, the concept of developmentally-appropriate sports training spread to the USA Hockey people, and then spread to the other National Governing Bodies including USRowing.
Here is an excellent description of the American Development Model, written by Jim DiSanza, Coach-in-Chief of Idaho Youth Hockey and Chair of the Department of Communication, Media, and Persuasion at Idaho State University:
This page on the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee website discusses the stages, the key principles, and the key outcomes of the American Development Model, and includes a link to their ADM Manual.
Malcolm Gladwell (author of Freakonomics, Outliers, etc.) has a podcast in which he interviewed two authors that are not directly connected to the American Development Model, but that wrote books highlighting aspects of the current youth sports culture that the American Development Model seeks to address. The authors are Lauren Fleshman and Linda Flanagan. Fleshman’s book Good for a Girl “gives voice to the often-silent experience of the female athlete and argues that the time has come to rebuild competitive sports with women at their center” (from Amazon description) and “in Take Back the Game, coach and journalist Linda Flanagan reveals how the youth sports industry capitalizes on parents’ worry about their kids’ futures, selling the idea that more competitive play is essential in the feeding frenzy over access to colleges and universities. Drawing on her experience as a coach and a parent, along with research and expert analysis, Flanagan delves into a national obsession that has compelled kids to specialize year-round in one sport, increased the risk of both physical injury and mental health problems, encouraged egregious behavior by coaches and parents, and reduced access to sports for low-income families.” (Again from Amazon description.)
The American Development Model, somewhat ironically but not that surprisingly, started in Canada. Victoria resident Istvan Balyi and other smart people within their national hockey program figured out that having six year olds play full-contact hockey games was not the best way to develop skilled hockey players. From there, the concept of developmentally-appropriate sports training spread to the USA Hockey people, and then spread to the other National Governing Bodies including USRowing.
Here is an excellent description of the American Development Model, written by Jim DiSanza, Coach-in-Chief of Idaho Youth Hockey and Chair of the Department of Communication, Media, and Persuasion at Idaho State University:
This page on the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee website discusses the stages, the key principles, and the key outcomes of the American Development Model, and includes a link to their ADM Manual.
Malcolm Gladwell (author of Freakonomics, Outliers, etc.) has a podcast in which he interviewed two authors that are not directly connected to the American Development Model, but that wrote books highlighting aspects of the current youth sports culture that the American Development Model seeks to address. The authors are Lauren Fleshman and Linda Flanagan. Fleshman’s book Good for a Girl “gives voice to the often-silent experience of the female athlete and argues that the time has come to rebuild competitive sports with women at their center” (from Amazon description) and “in Take Back the Game, coach and journalist Linda Flanagan reveals how the youth sports industry capitalizes on parents’ worry about their kids’ futures, selling the idea that more competitive play is essential in the feeding frenzy over access to colleges and universities. Drawing on her experience as a coach and a parent, along with research and expert analysis, Flanagan delves into a national obsession that has compelled kids to specialize year-round in one sport, increased the risk of both physical injury and mental health problems, encouraged egregious behavior by coaches and parents, and reduced access to sports for low-income families.” (Again from Amazon description.)