Coordination

The concept of coordination is introduced and considered as an important component of fitness for any
young football player. Some common misconceptions regarding coordination training are presented
and clarified. The What, Why and How of coordination training are discussed and appropriate
coordination training programme design is outlined with a look at some of the best exercises for
developing coordination.

1. What is coordination?
2. Why is coordination important in football?
3. Common myths regarding coordination
4. Coordination training- the What, Why and How?
5. Coordination training- Getting technical
6. Coordination training programme

What is coordination?

Coordination is a complex motor skill required for the performance of all athletic movements.

Coordination involves adapting the body’s movement to the movements of objects, teammates and
opponents.

Coordination is closely interrelated to speed, strength, endurance and flexibility, i.e. a good level of
coordination will allow easier development of speed, strength, endurance and flexibility, while a good
level in each of these components of fitness facilitates the development of coordination.

Coordination is considered one of the fundamental ABC’s of athletic development. The fundamental
ABC’s of athletic development should be considered the primary developmental goals for young athletes
and are considered; Agility, Balance and Coordination.

Coordination is a broad term used to explain many components of fitness that work together to
facilitate the learning and performance of smooth efficient movement.
Why is coordination important in football?

Coordination plays a crucial role in the learning and perfecting of technique for any skill or sporting
movement. A well coordinated child will learn and perform a skill in a much smoother, more efficient
and controlled manner compared to a child lacking basic coordination who will perform the same skill
with a rigid, stiffness of movement.

Good coordination facilitates both effective skill learning (and mastery) and the subsequent expression
or performance of that learned and mastered skill.

Effectively applying a technical skill relies heavily on coordination abilities, particularly in unfamiliar and
changing circumstances where the athlete may be required to adapt their movements to the
movements of objects, teammates and opponents, changes to weather conditions, lighting and playing
surface. An athlete exhibiting good coordination is considered to be capable of performing a skill
perfectly, as well as adapting rapidly to stimulus and tasks to which they are unexpectedly exposed.

Mastery of movement skill requires good coordination, without coordination athletic movement is
impossible.
Common misconceptions about coordination

Coordination is an innate ability that cannot be trained

As with other motor skills, coordination is in fact highly trainable. While innate ability, where a young
athlete may be naturally well coordinated, is quite common, improvements through training and
familiarisation are achievable. Any group of young athletes will contain a mix of both graceful and
clumsy athletes. Appropriate coordination training should but conducted from a very young training age
and should be the primary focus of any very young (6-9) athlete’s training schedule. Coordination, like
balance and agility must be considered as fundamental, foundational athletic skills.

Coordination training is boring for the athlete

Coordination training can be fun and should be introduced as games and fun activities as much as
possible with young athletes. Coordination underlies all athletic abilities and movement skills and must
be a fundamental part of an athlete’s long term training.

The exercises presented in this coordination section are merely an introduction and there is an endless
amount of variations and novel games a coach can create to develop coordination. Almost any
childhood game has an element of coordination in it. Classic games like duck-duck-goose and tag
challenge reaction time and spatial awareness, hop-skotch and skipping train kinaesthetic differentiation
and rhythm development while simple games of catch, touch rugby or American football all develop
hand-eye coordination

Coordination training is complicated and for the coach to use

Coordination training requires no high-tech equipment, only a bit of thought and innovation from the
coach. The young athlete should experience as much variety as possible with coordination training and
any game can be adapted with simple rule changes and restrictions to challenge coordination. The coach
can have their players play a 5-a-side match, changing the ball each time a goal is score, using a tennis
ball, football and even a rugby ball. This is suitably challenging and fun for the young athlete.
Coordination training- the What, Why and How?

What

Coordination is a very trainable component of fitness. While a certain level of natural coordination
ability is common, improvements through training and familiarisation are readily achievable.
Coordination training supplies a suitable stress to the athlete’s neuromuscular system, challenging the
development of controlled, effective body movement.

As a player progresses through the phases of development, complexity of coordination training

Coordination training from an early age should involve various games focusing on developing each
element of coordination;

1. Balance
2. Kinaesthethic differentiation
3. Spatial orientation
4. Reactions
5. Rhythm
6. Synchronised movements
7. Movement adequacy

These terms might seem scientific (and are explained later) but many games and exercises target these
abilities without the coach really knowing. The coach shouldn’t become concerned about what may
appear as complicated science as each of the games and exercises provided later in this section outline
exactly which of these abilities are being targeted, allowing the coach to pick and choose what exercises
to use in any training session.
Why

Young athletes will develop coordination naturally as they grow and mature; in the absence of any
specific coordination training per se. Likewise, young athletes will get stronger and faster as they grow
regardless of whether they are involved in any specific strength or speed training. However, the degree
to which these (or any) abilities improve without any structured training will be much lower than if the
developing athletes undergo suitable training.

Coordination training, like any other element of athlete development, must be part of a young players
overall training programme from an early age. Without suitable training the athlete can never develop
to their full potential.

When you consider the sheer diversity of abilities that the term “coordination” really represents; it is
clear that coordination training deserves priority and demands development form an early age.
How

Coordination can be trained quite easily by following the principles provided below. The table presented
below provides general guidelines and protocol for developing appropriate coordination training
exercises. Using these basic protocols there is an endless amount of suitable exercise variations a coach
can create to challenge coordination.

Method Example

Unusual starting position of an exercise Lie down, sit or turn away for the start of a sprint

Perform normal skill with opposite limb Weak foot dribbling/passing/ game play

Perform skill in unusual position Vary playing position, heading drills on knees,
hopping volley drills

Alter speed/tempo Two touch football, one touch games etc.

Impose restrictions/limitation 5 passes before scoring, must score with left foot
or header only

Create unusual performance conditions Introduce obstacles, different sized and shaped
balls, e.g. rugby, tennis, futsal

Perform related and unrelated sports Handball, tag rugby, football tennis etc.

Increase resistance/ make tasks more demanding Sumo style wrestling, additional player on one
team

Combine known with new skills Play game with task of using newly learned skill-
e.g. cruyff turns, step-over, volley to score
Coordination exercises for young athletes

Coordination training should target;

1. Basic athletic ability- Gymnastics

Exercises outlined below provide only a sample of an endless number of potential coordination
challenging exercises and tasks based on the above targets.

Coaches should be encouraged to adapt and implement novel exercises.

In his book “Children & Sports Training”, Dr. Jozef Drabik (a World renowned scientist in the area of
youth development) describes the coordinative abilities that make up coordination as;

8. Balance
9. Kinaesthethic differentiation
10. Spatial orientation
11. Reactions
12. Rhythm
13. Synchronised movements
14. Movement adequacy

Balance

Is the ability to maintain stability and can be static (with no movement) or dynamic (involving
movement).

Kinaesthethic differentiation

Describes the ability to ‘feel’ movements and apply the force required to achieve movements. A good
example of kinaesthethic differentiation in action is seen as a young player passes to a teammate 10
metres (or any distance) away. The player uses what is known as kinaesthethic differentiation to judge
how hard they must kick the ball to complete the pass.

Spatial orientation

Is the control of the body in space. Simply, this involves an awareness of where the arms and legs are
positioned.

Reactions

Describes the ability to recognise and respond to signals. These signals can be visual (a moving ball),
auditory (a teammate calling for a pass) or felt (an opponent pushing or pulling).

Rhythm

Is the ability to match movements to time.

Synchronised movements

Is the term used to describe unrelated movements performed together. The classic example of
synchronised movements is patting your head while rubbing your belly.
Movement adequacy

Is the ability to select the appropriate movements to perform a task. The physiological basis of
coordination lies in the coordination of the nervous processes of the central nervous system (CNS). The
CNS is responsible for constantly coordinating and regulating the complex structures of the human
body’s movement.

A primary function of the CNS is the selection and execution of a fast and accurate response to a given
stimuli. A simple example of this fast selection and execution in action can be seen as a child swerves to
dodge a pursuing classmate in a schoolyard game of tag.
Different Aspects of Coordination;

As introduced, coordination is complex process and while a thorough knowledge of the science of
coordination is not required, a general understanding of how coordination works may facilitate
successful training programme design.

Coordination can be considered as two separate, progressive levels;

• General Coordination

• Specific Coordination

General coordination

General coordination is considered the basic form of coordination and may be considered ‘versatility
based’ coordination. It is the foundation to coordination development, providing the platform for
specific (more specialised) coordination to be developed later.

General coordination governs the ability to perform various motor skills irrespective of sport
participation. An example of this general coordination may be seen as a child throws a ball, where the
action of the arms, shoulder, hands, wrist, trunk, hips and legs work together to achieve an efficient
throw.

All athletes following a suitable long term athlete development programme should gain a good level of
general coordination before progressing to specialised coordination. In this way coordination
development may be viewed similarly to overall athletic development where a basic foundation of
athletic ability is created before specialising and progressing to high performance.

Specific coordination

Specific coordination is sport based, representing; the ability to perform the activities demanded by a
specific sport flawlessly with great accuracy. Specific coordination equips the athlete with skills that are
highly transferable to the competition in a given sports field.

Young, developing football players should experience many skills from other sports and athletic events
in order to build general coordination first which will make possible the future development of football
specific coordination in later years.
Coordination training programme

A successful program for developing coordination should rely heavily on acquiring a high variety of skills,
in varied environments, with altered restrictions and demands.

Athletes acquire coordination more readily at an early age when they have the ability to alter and adapt
their environment much more easily than during adulthood. For this reason it is vital that the
coordination abilities of young athletes are challenged and developed from an early age.

The exercises provided here have been specifically designed for young football players. As with all
training methods it is important that young and novice athletes form foundational level in general
coordination, using the games and technical exercises provided, before attempting the more complex
exercises characteristic of specific coordination.

Coaches are responsible for the safe and efficient development of the athletes they train. Progression of
coordination training must only be considered once athletes have learned and mastered the basic
coordination skills. Coaches must understand the fundamental importance of creating a solid athletic
foundation before moving onto more complex activity.

Coordination development is a long term goal and must be viewed as an investment in the future of
sporting success. As a long term goal, coordination training is about forming good habits early,
perfecting technique and developing effective movement skill.

The guidelines and exercise instruction provided for the accompanying coordination training exercises
must be followed at all times.