Playing Time; What is it Good For?

Another in a theme of LTAD influenced articles, this time using that framework to outline different phases of "playing time".

This is an aspect of sport that many struggle with. Young coaches want success, often like to win, and want to reward or display the ones they view as the "best" players (Ok, let's be honest, coaches at all levels usually want this). Parents want their children to play and if paying for a club sport then they expect that as part of a package of services or opportunities. Unfortunately early in sport is when playing time is most abused and it can be explained looking at LTAD and the first stages.

Young athletes should begin an activity in the Fundamentals Stage or where the focus is on Technical Foundations. This often takes them to the cusp of the PHV (max growth spurt) and the teen years of change. If kids are developing Fundamentals then they have to be given a chance to play as that is what they are working toward in game structure and in skill acquisition. Likewise with Technical Foundations, a skill can only be applied in a game setting ie timing, stress, external pressures when given a playing chance. Coaches who put winning ahead of player development at this stage do not understand the process and have the priorities wrong.


Does this mean all players should play equally? No, that is up to the program, the sport, the team, the organizational objectives. If a water polo player is learning to swim then asking them to do the same physical work as a player with aquatic physical literacy is misguided.
The next level of sport is where the big mistakes are made that turn off players with great future potential. In the Competitive Foundation stage an athlete is being asked to learn to apply skill under pressure as taught with a specific tactical objective. Players who do this can expect to get more reps in a game than those that fail, and fail again. The big mistake comes from parents who want their child to get lots of chances to play even when the failure of objectives has been demonstrated repeatedly in a game. Coaches have to find ways to let players try and succeed but the expectation is to do this with progress. Keeping a player in a game when they struggle can create problems of team rejection ie no passes or inclusion of that player in the team play by others. Coaches can manage this if they know the players and what they can do, where they can find success and how the team can have a focus that is not just "score" or "win" so any perceived error is not influencing the outcome as long as there is a progress made with that error/correction.

Usually in this stage the coach and the player have a very good idea of who plays and why, or why some don't. It's the parent, fan or outsider that might not know all of what is going on. Don't expect that a coach can talk to every parent, every game, every event to talk about every player. That is a huge burden when so much coaching or player management is already happening. However, coaches MUST be clear about how they approach playing time with teh team and make it clear to families as well if the sport is a club (or to school officials if it's an institution).


The last point to consider at this stage is that not all players have to have equal play time to be fair. A goalie might play a whole game if they are the only one, a centre forward might play less than others on the team due to the workload and constant corrections from coaches for what the 2M Guard is doing. Some will be better at coming off the bench when they have sen some play and relaxed a bit. Many things are being developed here and "fair" and "equal" are NOT the same thing.

There is one place that playing time does not have as much passion from outsiders and that is at the pro level or with the International game. Players can't play a whole match and be effective with water polo, coaches know that so player rotation is an art and if someone is in the water all game then it is a problem of team depth. The substitutions are for tactics, power, speed, recovery, defense, scoring - it's endless, so don't make the mistake of thinking that a coach is doing something right or wrong based on the subs if you don't know the team, the prep and the dynamic.

One thing to remember and that is "who is the most important person in this equation"? The athlete, they must know the playing time thought process - who plays and why, who doesn't and why. If they know their role and the team objective at each level then the dialogue with players and coach should be smooth and look to that to see if there is a misuse of this aspect of the game.

LTAD as the Understanding of Water Polo Matures

I am about to try and get back to regular blog writing after an intense summer of building a house. Sorry if you have been looking for ideas or research on water polo recently and had nothing new here.

One thing I have heard quite a bit about this fall is training aerobic capacity for water polo and how Canadians taught to coach in the 70's and 80's (and onward?) were expected to develop an "aerobic base" for their players. This aerobic base had many coaches developing yearly training plans that had Aerobic training as a physical priority for as much as 50-60% of the season. However, the game has never been 50% aerobic at the senior level so that approach to training was unwise at the outset.

If you are wondering how that developed, how we needed to create an "aerobic base" for a water polo player, it can be found in the LTAD framework for the sport. There are 2 things that confuse this issue. One is the aquatic environment where coaches often need to teach physical literacy and comfort in the water. You can't teach comfort if the players are not able to be active in deep water for 90 minutes so aerobic work often got kids to that point. The other difference is between how International players play with explosive anaerobic components and children play the game with less structure ie chasing the ball aerobically around the pool. Coaches in clubs would need to teach various levels and that began with teaching movement and swimming so patterns of training were established and intensity changed as players got older but structure remained.

So, what am I proposing here? Simply that coaches need to recognize that aerobic capacity is outlined as a physical development of all children clearly under LTAD and in water polo we need to look at this closely around PHV (peak growth periods for each player). Children need to develop aerobic capacity as they grow and this can be done well in a water polo setting if that is where their athletic interest lies. However, this does not have to be doing swim sets that a speed swimming club would do with back and forth freestyle!

One thing is very clear, we don't need older players to have 50% of their physical load in an aerobic setting. I am very aware that history can give us many examples of coaches that "ran teams in the mountains", or swam 4000m swim sets for days on end, while producing great teams. But let me suggest that if all teams were doing this similar training then it wasn't simply the workload that set the winners apart form the losers. It also has to be kept in context that some coaches only train part of the player and they may put volume of work as a measure of toughness while psychological training can be absent. Perhaps "excessive workload" is playing that role of psychological training in some macho settings.

One of the things that an LTAD framework can help water polo coaches deal with is developing whole athletes. There are specific windows of trainable development for all energy systems and strength gains with each athlete. Sharing these periods with complimentary sports as children develop takes some of the load off water polo coaches who want to accelerate skill development in the pool setting. Likewise, extending a water polo practice from 90 minutes to 120, or 120 to 150, by adding land work can also help this area. Both strength and aerobic capacity can be developed on land in ways that will benefit in the water. Let's hope coaches are now beginning to explore these avenues more as LTAD points them out and waves the concepts in our faces.

One thing is for sure, if a competitive team of water polo players over the age of 18 is swimming a set of "8 x 400 free" then the the coach is either uncreative, underachieving or not sure of what energy requirements the game has at that level. Sorry to all the NCAA coaches that learned a different approach but you must have way too much pool time if a set of 400 free is a priority!

What Comes First, Rules or Program Ideas?

In the fall of 2010Manitoba Water Polo held an organizational planning meeting to discuss, priorities, common goals, obstacles to growth and things that make our organization work. It's great how these meetings can have the potential to change the direction of an organization and quickly accelerate the growth or modifications people seek.

I mention that now because we are into the Competitive Season for an organization that set the #1 priority in the fall as "Following the Water Polo Canada LTAD". Of course, that is terrific and it would have a big impact on player development, program design and Competition Focus. These are all things Bushido has been modifying for age group programs for the past decade, and with some success too, so getting the PSO on the same page was a really positive organizational shift.

It is not without bumps though, since we still have not seen any changes provincially to try and modify programs so the competition is not just "kids being treated as mini adults". Our Bushido Invitational is a 5 vs 5 format for 12U and 14U, modified games for all ages ie 18U teams playing exhibition games with Senior teams if they are a competitive stream etc. We are also using many young referees (who are also age group players), and asking them to whistle the games differently for 12U than 14U and differently for 14U than 16U. We are asking them to see how the players are different in their focus and development and they get it too.

This is why I am frustrated when I hear some older volunteers from clubs not following LTAD who comment on how FINA rules, and adult discipline, from the Olympics should apply to the 12U and 14U kids. It's just insane, but there is no changing this perspective if people don't see how players are developed as children and where rules must be different. Referees must see discipline as part of the growth of a child and work with them on control of physical play rather than against them as disciples of adult punishment.

We'd like to see referees work with clubs and coaches to develop the sport the way the 21st century demands it. I can say for certain that using PSO policies from the 1980's, or FINA rules from the Olympics, is not the way to do that. Starting with existing rules having no relation to the program ideals will fail, every time, when designing new ways to develop athletes following the principles that went into the LTAD vision.