Canada's Long Term Athlete Development Plan

Canada’s Long Term Athlete Development Plan is based on the physical, mental, emotional, and cognitive development of children and adolescents (Canada Sport for Life, 2005). It consists of various stages, which resembles a different point in an athlete’s development. The aim of this plan is to promote a healthy, physically educated country, where the citizens participate in lifelong physical activity (Canada Sport for Life, 2005). Active Start is the very first stage of the 3 childhood stages, and it is targeted towards males and females from ages 0-6 (Canada Sport for Life, 2005). The strengths of this stage is that it emphasizes fun and daily physical activity, both structured and unstructured. Physical activity is important for healthy child development, as it develops cognitive skills,
Also, physical activity increases self-confidence and promotes healthy weight. Therefore, active movement environments should be combined with well-structured gymnastics and swimming programs, for example. This stage states that children should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes, except when they are sleeping. Also, fitness and general movement skills are developed in Active Start. This stage focuses on learning proper movement skills, for example, running, jumping, wheeling, twisting, kicking, throwing, and catching. In addition, Active Start encourages individuals to explore the risks and limitations within safe environments.
A weakness of Active Start is that children are placed on structured teams by chronological rather than developmental age (Canada Sport for Life, 2005). This means that children are not allowed to play