ADM Resources

Coaching Education - American Development Model

  • American Development Model
  • Stages


Infographic of 5 ways to be physically literate
  1. Expose your child to activities in a variety of environments
  2. Expose them to swimming for water safety and ambidextrous movements
  3. Encourage free play outside, tree climbing, jungle gym and backyard games
  4. Play catch with your child using different balls and objects
  5. Provide opportunities to develop striking skills with bat and ball, racquets, sticks.

  • Key Links

The Team USA Parent Youth Sport Resources are a collaboration between National Governing Bodies and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee to help parents navigate their youth athlete towards a safe and positive sport experience. By having short, to-the-point resources that empower parents to look for best practices in the youth sport experience, the objective is to help parents ask the right question or seek to be a positive influencer in the youth sport space. These 32 resources are built with five tips or tricks to help parents in these areas: quality programming, great coaching, sportsmanship, respecting officials, being a rock star sport parent and more.


These resources are designed for parents, sports clubs, coaches and athletes to share across the youth sport space to get a consistent message across.


The creation team included NGBs such as: USA Swimming, USA Hockey, USA Field Hockey, USA Baseball, US Lacrosse, USA Football, United States Tennis Association, US Rowing, USA Golf, US Fencing and USA Volleyball. All NGBs and sports organizations are welcome to join in the sharing and distribution of these resources and the USOPC coaching education team will continue to grow the materials over the rest of 2019 and into 2020.


The American Development Model is influenced by the work of Istvan Balyi, who is known worldwide as an industry leader in long-term athlete development principles. Balyi's approach to organized sport focuses on key principles of development and periodization of training plans, which help support athletes’ individual needs.


Additionally, the ADM is supported by research conducted in Australia, Canada, South Africa and the U.K.