Coordination Training

A short lesson in movement skill development…

As a young child matures general coordinative abilities and movement skills are always improving. However coordination development accelerates significantly around age 5 through the early teenage years…

Therefore it makes sense that preadolescent children be exposed to a wide range of general movement activities to take advantage of these years of accelerated coordination development.

With end goal of developing a higher level of sports specific skills in the teenage years

Coordination is made of seven elements:

Balance (both static and dynamic)

Rhythm

Spatial orientation

Speed of reaction (to sights and sounds)

Synchronization of movement

Kinesthetic differentiation

Movement adequacy

Balance: the ability to maintain equilibrium in relation to the force of gravity. Here's an example of some balance activities.

Rhythm: is the ability to create efficient fundamental movement in the time appropriate to a given exercise. Here's an example of some rhythm activities...

Spatial Orientation: A subset of kinesthetic perception It refers to the ability to sense the position of the body or its parts in space. Here's a few examples...

Speed of reaction: the ability to quickly respond with movement to a particular stimulus such as sight, sound or touch. Here's an example.

Kinesthetic differentiation: the ability to finely discern and finely adjust the muscular tension in movement to achieve a desired result. Here's an example.

Movement adequacy: the ability to move in such a way as to accomplish a task with minimal effort. This is essentially the summation of all the above elements.

Synchronization of movement: this is perfected by exercises that consist of unrelated movements of two or more limbs or body parts, such as your neck, trunk or hips.

Essential sources
Children and sports training by Jozef Drabik
Coordination and Movement skill development by Brian Grasso
Athletic skills model by Rene Wormhoudt