Long Term Equestrian Development (LTED) is the equestrian model for maximizing an athlete’s potential at critical stages of cognitive, affective and psycho-motor skill set acquisition.
More simply, it’s providing the right coaching environment to facilitate learning throughout the active lifetime of the athlete. The model is practical, designed to direct programming needs of youthful beginners to seasoned competitors and includes needs of adult amateurs. The LTED or in other sports, the Long Term Athlete Development model is a cornerstone program that has been adopted by most, if not all, sports governing organizations in Canada.
Each demographic in every sport discipline has an optimum time frame for skill acquisition, physical and mental training, and competitive mileage. In equestrian sport, our equine partners are subject to the same considerations as human athletes. All groups of athletes, human and equine benefit from setting and achieving attainable goals within a coach supervised training plan. Using the LTED as a guideline for riding coaches encourages the implementation of sport science as it relates to the equestrian athlete.
The LTED Committee of the Alberta Equestrian Federation initiated, conferred and published a Long Term Equestrian Development booklet in 2016. Committee members began the process to align the the LTED model with services and programs offered through the AEF and Equestrian Canada. As a member of the committee and certified coach, I’m excited to see the possibilities of having a developmental model for coaches, instructors, riders and officials in Alberta.
More information on the LTED in Alberta can be found at http://www.albertaequestrian.com/programs
