| When the Welsh Rugby Union became the first professional sports body to achieve UK Sport licence status to deliver the Athlete Career and Education (ACE UK) service in the year 2000, nobody could have predicted the impact it would have on the rugby environment and development of young players in Wales.
By the time UK Sport rebranded the ACE UK service to Performance Lifestyle in 2004, the WRU had already gained five years' worth of experience in delivering the programme. Today, the WRU today continues to help lead the development and implementation of the programme at UK and international level fully integrating the service as part of a professional player’s career development path. The concept of Performance Lifestyle is to attempt to ensure players are provided with the best competing environment possible.
As well as ensuring a player excels at the Elite end of the game whilst they are a the peak of the playing career, Performance Lifestyle aims to encourage a player to manage all of the demands that a life in sport may through a them and to think about the wider life issues that may affect them away from the field of play. Helping a player before they end their sporting career will give them valuable time to assess where they see themselves going when their career is over and to plan for that eventuality.
The Performance Lifestyle programme consists of three key performance areas;
Education Guidance: Education and Guidance ensures that players are able to successfully integrate their rugby with the demands of their educational study. This part of the programme can help a player to continue with their educational studies such as GCSEs, A Levels and University Education or simply embark on a scheme of wider learning for a career path of the future.
Employment and Career Advice: Employment and Career Advice supports players through all stages of the career development model assessing and advising on how a player can prepare for a life of employment after rugby and look at how their education can be integratedto that end or how they can embark on vocational training whilst playing.
Lifestyle Support: This aspect of the programme is carried out by the Performance Lifestyle Coordinator and gives players basic financial and legal advice, advice on how to deal with the media, how to deal with success and failure, how to manage time effectively and how to approach the prospect of retirement away from the game.
Performance Lifestyle is about helping athletes and coaches to create a lifestyle that is conducive to performing at the highest level, ensuring that the young players of today become the role models of Welsh rugby and professionalism of the future.
|
