Coordination training is designed to improve the overall ability of a person to move fluidly. It may involve exercises to increase balance or improve a person’s ability to respond to different spontaneous physical situations. There are many different kinds of coordination, and each has different optimal methods of training. For example, certain sports like baseball have very particular coordination training drills, which teach people to perform the most common and difficult movements they’ll need in the sport.
Sometimes the term coordination is used in different ways, but the most common definition includes a mix of balance, the ability to move body parts together well, and timing. Someone who has good coordination will often seem to be more agile than people who don’t. Most experts believe that people are generally born with a certain natural level of coordination, but they also think it can be enhanced with proper coordination training methods.
To some extent, people naturally put themselves through coordination training as they grow up. Coordination doesn’t necessarily develop right away for people, and some kids don’t develop decent coordination until they reach their teens or even later. When children have poor coordination, it may lead to them dropping things or tripping frequently, and they may develop a reputation as a clumsy person. Some people never really develop very good coordination during their childhood years, and this clumsiness can easily follow them into adulthood.
Coordination training can help people overcome a naturally lower level of coordination. It’s actually best if people get this training during their childhood or teen years because they are more open to learning these kinds of physical skills at that time. Later on, many experts believe coordination becomes more hardwired, and it is harder to overcome a weakness at that point. Still, most fitness gurus suggest that it’s never really too late for someone to take advantage of coordination training. Regardless of age, people should generally be able to get some benefits from the training, even if they aren’t optimal.
There are several recommended coordination training methods, including aerobic dance and pre-scripted movement routines. An example of the latter approach might include a sequence where someone would run, crawl, stand again, and then dodge in each direction. Such a sequence of movements might be called out by a coach, and the person wouldn’t necessarily know which movements were coming next. It’s also generally true that playing most sports will improve a person’s overall coordination, especially when it comes to certain movements required by that sport.