1. Physical Literacy and the LADM

2. What is the LADM? Excellence Physical Literacy First Contact
The Lacrosse Athlete Development Model is US Lacrosse’s framework for providing age appropriate lacrosse experiences. It incorporates the childs physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development into the lacrosse training and competition experiences, with the over-arching goal of providing the right lacrosse at the right time in the child’s development. It’s US Lacrosse’s version of LTAD.
Our hope is that in doing this we will “square the pyramid” that is prevalent in todays youth lacrosse culture, keep more kids in the game, and build their love of not only lacrosse, but also of physical activity.
Physical Literacy
First Contact

3. Core Values of LADM
The LADM is based upon 6 core values. These values shape the decisions we make when providing resources and other educational information to coaches on what the child’s lacrosse experience should look like.

4. Mom’s, Dad’s, and other well meaning adults.
Our Audience
Mom’s, Dad’s, and other well meaning adults.
We say “kinesiology”, they say “Bless You!”
Who are our coaches? Our major demographic are volunteer coaches, the mom’s or dad’s, who get involved because they want to share in their child’s lacrosse experience. They may or may not have the training and skills to ensure that the athletes in their charge are getting the right physical experience out of their training. For many of them, they tend to build their training regimen off of what their last (if any) lacrosse experience was or what they have seen from other coaches, who often times coaching at a higher level than them (college coach presents at a convention, youth coach goes and does it with their team). We believe we have a responsibility to the athlete and the coach to provide them with the tools to help.

5. Educating our Audience
Big picture, we are targeting organizations/program leaders to inspire change within their programs. Often times these folks can “push down” to the coaches what they want the kids to be learning and doing on a global level. When we get the organizations on board, the coaches will follow.

6. Educating our Audience
This is a guide we have put together for helping coaches to build PL training right into their daily practice, via the dynamic warm-up. It provides endless options, that not only promote the development of PL, but also prepare the body for the rigors of activity. With PE on the decline in many public school environments, kids simply are not getting the experiences they once were in school to help them develop PL tools. This is a minimally invasive way of getting kids some PL training, without intruding on the lacrosse experience, and without the coach needing significant training in PL programming.
Adapted from >

7. In lacrosse you’re ready to:
Educating our Audience
LADM Stage
If you can/have:
In lacrosse you’re ready to:
Discovery
Run, jump, hop, twist, turn, stop, start, static balance, catch with two hands
Run with ball, scoop, throw, find open space.
Fundamentals
Agility, dynamic balance, bilateral coordination, skipping, hopping, throwing/tossing, catching away from body, flexibility, strength
Proficiency in grip and scooping, exploring and developing fundamental lacrosse skills (catch, pass, shoot, cradle, dodge)
Foundations
Agility, footwork, dynamic balance, complex coordination, linear speed, speed of coordination, strength, flexibility.
Proficient at most basic technical skills, developing dodge variations, exploring variations of shooting/passing and cradling, developing individual defense skills
Emerging
Agility, footwork, dynamic balance, speed, multi-directional speed, core strength, lower extremity strength (for injury prevention), endurance, plyometric/power, flexibility
Demonstrate and execute fundamental skills under pressure. Develop stick checking and body checking ability. Develop proficiency in position specific skills.
Competitive
Agility, footwork, dynamic balance, strength, endurance, speed, plyometric/power, flexibility.
Repetition of fundamental skills, correction of bad habits, innovate, master position specific skills and defensive skills.
High Performance
Agility, footwork, dynamic balance, strength, endurance, speed, flexibility
Full mastery of technical skills, developing the ability to peer coach, focus on role specific skills that benefit team.
As we know, PL is relatively progressive in nature. You have to crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run. Adapting that to lacrosse, we took a look at some PL skills, and examined it to see what FMS’s you should have or be working on, in order to perform various lacrosse specific skills. The lacrosse specific skills are divided into 6 levels of acquisition, loosely based off of Blooms Taxonomy into what we refer to as the Skills Matrix
This is the beginnings of a project we have going on currently. An assessment tool called “Ready for Lacrosse” will be developed in The objective is to provide a simple, yet effective tool for practitioners to use to gain a benchmark of an athlete’s PL, as well as a prescription for helping to improve it.

8. Behind the Back Throwing
The Skills Matrix
Introduction
Exploration
Developing
Proficiency
Mastery
Extension
Grip 8U
10U
Scooping
Catching
Cradling
Face Dodge
Split Dodge
12U
Roll Dodge
Overhand Throwing
¾ Throwing
14U
Sidearm Throwing
Behind the Back Throwing
Faking
Overhand Shooting
The skills matrix takes into account the expected PL development of children at each age segment (based on USL Youth Rules) and marries it with the appropriate lacrosse skills.
Excerpted from > The Progression Playbook: A guide to coaching lacrosse skills in an age appropriate context.

9. Coaching Resources
Discuss the resources we have available for coaches and how they incorporate PL activities into the lacrosse skill development.

10. A brief list of those who have inspired our work:
Thank You
A brief list of those who have inspired our work:
Dr. Istvan Balyi
Dr. Richard Way
Dr. Colin Higgs
Dr. Anthony Moreno – Eastern Michigan University
Billy Ward, CSCS – Charlotte, NC.
Brett Klika, Spiderfitkids.com, CSCS – San Diego, CA.
Ken Martel, USA Hockey – Colorado Springs, CO.
Kirk Anderson, US Tennis Assoc. (ret’d.) – Portland, OR. TJ
uslacrosse.org/ladm
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