Coaches: Chornological Age vs. Development Age/Phase

[hbear]

Wondering what the current thought is and how you manage this.
Given ski racing is a late development specilization sport, there are critical windows for development throughout an athlete's maturation. Where an athlete missing a foundation skill or ability by a certain development phase almost guarentees their inability to overcome the deficit as they progress further.

Our challange (and likely a common theme) is how does one manage the challange of grouping athletes based on their developmental age/phase (which is best practice, national recommendations and ensures a more optimal training environment) vs. the typical grouping by chronological age (due to ease and logistics when it comes to actual races as well)? There are always going to be athletes that excel and develop more quickly, and those that take longer; however neither benefits when put in the wrong training group and suboptimal training enviornment. (we see this as the greatest challange in the 8-12 year old age ranges)

Perhaps this is one of the reasons we see a trend for parents to seek out private coaching, or create small boutique groups which hire their own coaches? And the reason this works likely is the individualized and athlete centered approach which optimizes athlete development.

Now although I don't beleive most parents are trying to build WC skiers, likely a function of many factors (training enviorment and availablity as big factors) which then lead to WC opportunities. It is certainly interesting to see a disproportiationately large number of WC athletes who have a parent that was/is a coach, or decent level racer themselves which very likely had influence on the above.

Thoughts?

 

[razie]

yeah - also a big issue for me when coaching certain age groups, U12-U16 being the most affected by these... dealing with this is not easy and right you are, it's not just chronological age differences but also skill, which may develop faster or slower.

It's annoying to see a wide range of skills bundled together in the same "age group".

Ideally we'd have skill-based training groups, rather than age-based. What I see around here is that racing is tiered and many clubs have a "performance" training group, like a division 1 vs 2 or such (OCUP vs SOD CUP or whatever politically correct name they come up with).

Other than that, for a really good lower age racer, you should take it up with the head coach and inquire at the racing organization, I would assume most would accommodate some training with the higher ages etc. Even racing is sometimes allowed in a higher age group and certainly training camps.

And sometimes, like you said, parents take it upon themselves and start coaching.

cheers

 

[Doby Man]

Developing athletes need competitive motivation, the most of which is provided when a racer is seeded "in" the pack and not at either extreme. A youth athlete that always gets first place is not going to benefit from much more competitive motivation than a youth athlete that always comes in last. To perform well, we need to experience both the potential prospects of biting success in the ass as well as the pressure from those nipping at our heels. Woof woof.

 

[graham418]

We have a similar situation with kids hockey . The age divisions are based on your age at December 31. (funnily enough, a large percentage of NHL players are born in January!!) ,
As a result you get many sizes across that group. And as you get older , you get many variances in abilities between ones who started at different ages. Yes , fundamentals are missing in some kids.
It is not limited to skiing only ,but all organized team sports. In hockey , the better ( not always bigger) kids get invited to play in higher competitive leagues.
Some competitive parents actively seek out these positions for their kids, and put them into private training / coaching to improve their skills.