In January 2010, the Canadian Curling Association published a policy document, drafted by a team that included former Canadian champions Elaine Dagg-Jackson and Melissa Soligo along with CCA Director of High Performance Gerry Peckham, Istvan Baly, Richard Way, and Sharon Delver, entitled Long-term Athlete Development for Curling in Canada.
I’d like to draw the attention of parents and my fellow coaches to this 33-page document, because I think it contains some important information for the stakeholders of curling and a blueprint for how to structure the training of young athletes in order to achieve excellence at the international level. The overall premise of the Long-term Athlete Development program for curling is that:
Every athlete entering the sport will have the potential for a positive, individualized experience no matter what their level of participation or competition, and the athlete with podium aspiration and promise will receive timely and appropriate development.
For parents, the document describes the progression of activities related to curling at each age level, how the specialization and technical advancement should proceed as children get older. For example, for children between the ages of 9 and 12 (boys) (and 8-11 for girls), the paper prescribes the following:
- Overall sport skills development;
- Major skill learning stage: all basic sports skills should be learned before entering “Training to Train” (the next development level);
- Introduction to mental preparation;
- Medicine ball, Swiss ball, own body strength exercise;
- Introduce ancillary capacities (knowledge of warm-up and cool-down procedures, stretching, nutrition, hydration, rest, recovery, restoration, mental preparation, and taper and peak);
- Talent identification;
- Single or double periodization (structuring of practice and competitions to “peak” at specific times);
- Sport-specific training 3 times per week, participation in other sports 3 times per week.
For coaches, the document briefly outlines the type and frequency of training as the athletes get older and the level of competition increases.
Curling has been Olympic sport for two decades, and it is evident that the thrust of this document is to outline training programs to develop high-performance teams that can compete at that level. Nonetheless, the document will be helpful to a spectrum of parents, athletes, and their coaches in providing an outline of the level of training desirable at each age level, and level of competition.