Muscle memory and hand coordination: exercises. Topic: Fine motor skills

Those who are interested in sports and active recreation exercises are necessary to develop speed and dexterity, coordination of movements. These skills allow you to win sports competitions, enjoy outdoor games, avoid injuries. Some are convinced that it is impossible to become dexterous; it is an innate quality and therefore cannot be improved. Actually designed special exercises, allowing you to develop these body abilities.

What is agility

The origin of the word “dexterity” goes back to the word “lov” - “to catch”. Previously, the ability of a fisherman or hunter to obtain a sufficient amount of food depended on this skill.

As a rule, agility refers to a combination of different qualities: flexibility, speed of reaction, mobility, coordination and accuracy of movements.

If these qualities are sufficiently developed, the body acquires a special tone, not allowing various surprises to take itself by surprise.

A tourist, jumping over bushes near a deep stream that was not noticed in time, will be able to react effectively and correctly already in flight.

How to Assess Current Coordination Development

Before starting classes, it is worth assessing the current level of development of hand-eye coordination using a simple balance test.

  • Stand on one leg, bend the other and lift it higher, but so that it is comfortable. After standing for a minute, repeat the test on the other leg.

How easy was it to keep your balance? Which leg is easier to stand on? As a rule, over the course of a lifetime it is possible to develop better one or another leg.

Perform this test with your eyes closed. The goal is to maintain balance on each leg for 30 seconds. If the test fails, exercises are needed to develop motor coordination.

How to properly develop coordination of movements


The goal of the training is to achieve complete independence of body movements from the brain and visual sensations:

  • Maintain balance by standing on one leg for a minute, arms spread to the sides. The head turns left and right. The gaze is not fixed and does not help maintain balance. As the skill develops, close your eyes.
  • Standing against a wall or door on one leg, throw the ball and catch it after it bounces. Look only at the ball.
  • Standing on one leg, jump up and land on the other leg. The next jump is landing in the starting position. Completes within a few minutes.
  • In transport, without holding onto the handrail, maintain stability, maintaining balance solely with the help of your legs.
  • "Juggler". Taking a children's ball in each hand, throw and catch them alternately with your right and then with your left hand. She threw her right hand and she caught it. Then the other hand does the same.
  • Make the previous exercise more difficult: right hand throws the ball - catches it left hand, then vice versa.
  • To develop body stability, both hands throw balls at the same time, but the right ball is caught by the left hand, and the left ball is caught by the right hand.

How to develop dexterity and coordination at home

A simple way to increase reaction speed is to perform traditional movements from an unusual position, under unusual conditions. The purpose of these classes is to maintain a sense of balance, learn to remember new movements as quickly as possible, and reproduce them with maximum speed and accuracy.

It’s worth starting with simple combinations. The more complex and faster the movements performed, the higher the intensity of the workout.

As a result sports activities Not only the muscles, but also the nervous system receives load.

Helps develop dexterity sport games: basketball, hockey, football. Running over rough terrain with obstacles that you have to go around and jump over is useful.

Walking on a gymnastic beam, rail, or curb helps to develop coordination of movements and dexterity. To complicate the exercise, move the ball around the body, passing it from one hand to the other.

Exercise 1. In a standing position, rotate your right hand clockwise, your left hand counterclockwise. After 10-15 movements, change the direction of rotation of the arms.

Exercise 2. Place the palm of your right hand at a distance of 5-10 cm above your head. Raise and lower your palm, touching the crown of your head. At the same time, the palm of the left hand makes circles parallel to the plane of the abdomen.

Exercise 3. While standing, extend your right arm forward. Rotate your straightened arm clockwise and your hand counterclockwise. The movements are performed 10-15 times, smoothly and without jerking. Repeat for the other hand.

Exercise 4. Both straightened arms are extended in front of you. One hand performs arbitrary movements, the other draws one or another geometric figure - circle, square, triangle, etc. After 10-15 movements, the hands change roles.

What sports exercises develop agility and speed?

The easiest way to develop arm strength, back muscles, and coordination of movements is to walk on your hands, pushing the ball in front of you with your hands.

They develop reaction, eye and precision of movements by alternately throwing a ball between partners that has bounced off the wall. One participant throws a ball, which bounces off the wall; a partner catches the ball and returns it back in a similar way.

Next exercise to develop speed, agility and coordination: jump on the spot and at the same time “dribble” the ball. To make jumping movements more difficult, turn your torso 90 degrees to the right or left and dribble two balls at the same time.

Coordination of movements and leg strength are developed by jumping over gymnastic bench on two legs, on one leg, while dribbling the ball. You can jump sideways, backwards.

Another exercise is to throw the ball, somersault, catch the ball. To make it more difficult, try to have time to stand up, jump and catch the ball in a jump.

Modified: 08/16/2018

If you learned to play the piano as a child, you probably remember your teacher telling you that the most important thing is concentration, coordination and confidence. And coordinating this is the hardest lesson to learn.

Many instruments - keyboards, guitar, drums - require you to play with both hands (and sometimes feet), they must work in tandem, and sometimes “against” each other. And this can be a problem for beginners who are used to using only one hand. When they see experienced musicians doing seemingly incredible things that seem even more difficult than the old trick of simultaneously tapping the head and in a circular motion hands on the stomach, it seems impossible to them.

But all musicians know that the first stages of learning the piano, guitar or drums primarily require training in coordination and muscle memory. All because coordination is something that can be learned, and not something that musicians are born with. Here are some exercises to help you get started.

1. When you are learning a new piece, it will be more correct if you start with the part of your left hand (well, or the one that is weaker for you, for left-handed people - vice versa). If you have just picked up the instrument, you will quickly understand that the weaker hand needs much more time to learn its part.

2. You can train coordination very quietly. Pianists can practice finger positioning and movements right on the table, drummers can tap on a pad, and guitarists can move their hands along the fingerboard without hitting the strings with the other hand. These exercises help develop muscle memory and can be done while doing something else, such as talking on the phone or watching a movie.

3. Physically strengthening a weak arm is also a very important part of training. Guitarists can squeeze a tennis ball or exercise machine for several minutes a day. And this is probably the simplest function for which you can always find time.

4. Another simple way to practice coordination on the piano. Place both thumbs on C to the first octave, and all other fingers on the white keys on both sides of this note. Go down, playing, “down” with your left hand, and up with your right. When your little fingers are on Fa (left hand) and Sol (right hand), work your way back.

5. Should a left-handed guitarist hold the neck in his right hand? This is a personal choice, but many lefties like to hold it strong hand. Plus, if a left-hander can do this, he has a wider choice of instruments, plus he can exchange them with right-handers and read tablature without changing anything about them.

6. If you are practicing scales and arpeggios, it is very important to do this very slowly and deliberately at first so that your hands remember correct technique, played cleanly and did not acquire bad habits. At this stage, it is very important for you to look at your weak hand and monitor it. Once you start playing without making mistakes, you can stop looking at your hands and play at a faster pace.

7. A metronome is an extremely useful thing not only for coordination, but in general. This is critical for drummers, but the reality is that every musician needs to get used to playing exclusively to a metronome from the very beginning. Of course, after you more or less remember the melody and rhythm, there is no need to make mistakes in movements while chasing the tempo.

8. And one more tip for those who play keyboards, which, however, can be used for other instruments. When learning a new piece, try playing the right hand part with your left hand. And vice versa. If you play chords that are familiar to your left hand, you develop mobility and "inventiveness" in both limbs. Right-handed drummers can use this technique when playing with their left hand on the ride, and for guitarists, tapping is a great technique.

Speaking in simple language, coordination is an ability different muscles work in harmony. This property of the body makes our life much easier. If it is well developed, we confidently master riding a bicycle, dancing, do not fall in icy conditions, maintain balance in public transport, and so on. Everyone's coordination is developed to varying degrees. Some are “like a bull in a china shop,” while others are grace itself. Many argue that it is impossible to improve this ability because it is innate, but this is not true. There are special coordination exercises that allow you to develop these skills. First, let's figure out how coordination arises naturally.

Childhood

Coordination begins to develop at a very early age, when the child learns to hold his head, roll over, and make any directed movements. In the future, if you train your baby correctly and introduce him to sports or dancing, this ability will improve. As an adult, a person no longer thinks about coordination and, as a rule, does less exercise. However, he will never look clumsy while performing a particular task, as “muscle memory” will do its job. Therefore, it is important that from childhood the child be active and play sports, and an amateur level is quite enough. At the same time, we note that the development of coordination is possible at any age. Before mastering coordination exercises, you need to assess how developed this ability is in your body.

Coordination Assessment

Assessing yourself is not at all difficult, it will literally take half a minute. Let's look at the simplest test that every man most likely performed when passing. You need to stand straight and extend your arms straight forward. Then you need to close your eyes and try to reach the tip of your nose with the index finger of one hand, after which the same operation is done with the second hand.

Another simple test is as follows: standing on one leg, you need to take the second one back and grab it with your hand, and extend your free hand forward. After standing in this position for 30 seconds, you need to change legs.

Don’t be upset if you don’t succeed; special exercises will help you quickly master this ability. There are many trainings, but we will look at the most effective and universal ones.

A set of coordination exercises

The main goal is to achieve independence of body movements from visual sensations and the brain. You can do coordination exercises either using special simulators or while sitting at your desk. Therefore, even the busiest person can work on managing the work of individual muscle groups.

The simplest exercises to develop coordination

1. Standing on one leg and spreading your arms to the sides, you need to maintain balance for a minute. Then the exercise must be done with the other leg. To make the workout more challenging, you can add side-to-side head turns. At the same time, there is no need to fix your gaze on anything. As your skill grows, you can try closing your eyes.

2. Jumping with alternating legs. It takes a few minutes to complete.

3. In transport, try to maintain your balance without holding onto the handrail. At the same time, do not move far from the handrail and be ready to help yourself with your hands at any time. Otherwise, the exercise may lead to injury and criticism from other passengers.

4. Initial position- one palm is placed near the head, and the second near the stomach. The distance from the palms to the body is about 10 centimeters. The exercise is as follows: the first hand touches the crown, and the second at the same time describes circles parallel to the plane of the abdomen. After a minute you need to change hands.

More complex exercises

If the first complex is easy for you, then you shouldn’t focus on it, move on to more difficult trainings.

1. Standing on one leg near the wall, you need to throw the ball at the wall, and when it bounces back, try to catch it without visual control. Then the same must be done on the other leg.

2. The next exercise is juggling. You need to start with something simple - one ball in each hand. One by one, the balls must be tossed and caught with the same hand. Now you can complicate the exercise. To start, try throwing the ball with one hand and catching it with the other. Once this skill is developed, try throwing balls at the same time, but catching them with alternating hands.

3. Most people remember some coordination exercises from lessons. school physical education. One of them is rotating the arms in opposite directions. For example, the right hand rotates clockwise, and the left hand counterclockwise. After performing the movement 10-15 times, you need to change direction. It sounds simple, but not every adult can do this exercise the first time.

4. Stretching one arm forward, you need to rotate it in one direction, and the hand of the same arm in the other. Movements should be smooth. After 10-15 repetitions, you need to do the exercise with the other hand.

5. Two arms are extended forward. One hand in the air seems to be drawing some geometric figure, and the other makes arbitrary movements. After doing the exercise for a few minutes, you can change hands.

Other exercises

Walking on your hands is a great way to develop back and arm strength, as well as coordination. But this exercise is not given immediately and only to those who have good physical fitness. This exercise helps develop accuracy, reaction and eye: two partners stand near a wall and throw a ball at it so that it bounces from one to the other. A more complex version of this exercise is to play table tennis. For those who want to work on coordination, speed and agility, jumping in place while hitting the ball on the floor is suitable. If you want to make this move more challenging, simply rotate your body 90 degrees with each jump, or use two balls for each hand. Simple jumps over a gymnastic bench are also very effective way work on coordination. But you need to jump not in one direction, but in four (forward, backward, right, left). Gymnasts often do this exercise: throw a ball (or some other object), do a somersault, catch the thrown object. Try it too, it is very useful for coordination.

Coordination and sports

Team sports help develop agility, coordination, speed, and also train muscles well: football, basketball, hockey, volleyball and others. Cross-country running also helps a lot: due to the constant change of terrain and the need to jump over or go around obstacles, the nervous system is constantly under tension, and the body is in full readiness. Speaking about exercises for developing coordination of movements, one cannot fail to mention those types physical activity, which are associated with maintaining balance. This can be either slacklining (walking on a special sling) or simple walking along curbs, rails, logs and other long and narrow surfaces. If you have already mastered balance exercises, try throwing a ball from hand to hand or twisting it around your body at the same time.

Conclusion

As you can see, coordination develops when practicing almost any sport. Therefore, those who lead an active lifestyle usually have no problems with this natural ability. for coordination are needed by those who have not done much sports in their life. And they will also be needed professional athletes who intend to conquer new heights and cannot be satisfied with the normal level of coordination, agility and speed. The main takeaway from this conversation is that natural ability can be developed at any age, so those who are willing to put in the work can improve their fitness no matter what.

Coordination of movements is the accuracy of moving our body in space relative to the commands of the brain with the concomitant preservation of balance. This ability develops in a person with early years, but even as an adult, special coordination exercises will help her improve.

Developing a skill from childhood

The more time a child spends sports entertainment, for example, table tennis, acrobatics, and just active games, the better his dexterity and coordination develop.

In normal condition nervous system and vestibular apparatus, dexterity at birth varies slightly among different children. But then, depending on the lifestyle, the potential is lost. As a result, someone cannot catch a tennis ball thrown to him from 10 meters, and someone hits him from 20 meters basketball into the ring, standing with your back to it. Let's look at why this happens.

Childhood is the most convenient time for developing the necessary physical characteristics. Muscle memory absorbs all movements like a sponge, firmly preserving them for many years. Then, as the child gets older, the ability to learn begins to fade. Of course, it's never too late to learn. But at 18–20 years old, training any physical skill will be somewhat more difficult than at 13–14. And after 30 years, solving the same problem will require even more time and effort. It's the same with coordination. The sooner you start working on it, the easier it will be to achieve results.

Simple coordination tests

Let's do the following test: try to rotate your hand clockwise, and the same arm at the elbow counterclockwise. It doesn't work, right? But it works great to rotate it all in one direction. This is because our coordination center is accustomed to symmetry, peace, and synchronicity. If something needs to be done not according to the usual scenario, difficulties arise, because the brain and body do not know how to do this, they need to be taught. By the way, this is the first coordination exercise, in fact, the beginning of its training.

Another test: stand on one leg, take the other back, arms to the sides. Close your eyes and count how long you can stand like this. This is also a coordination exercise that will help improve your balance and agility.

Third test: take 2 tennis balls (by the way, let them lie at home, sometimes they are useful) and throw them against the wall alternately with your right and left hand - it works out well, right? Now stand on one leg and do the same. More difficult? There is such a moment. And now the best part - jump on one leg and continue throwing and catching balls. Everything, stupor, confusion, the balls flew into the corners, and you actually fell.

There is also more than one coordination test, you can come up with anything you want. Just order your body to perform a non-standard set of movements. And you will see how imperfect your body is in this regard.

Vestibular apparatus

This segment of the brain helps our body determine where is down and where is up, where is right and where is left. It works due to hydraulic pressure on special receptors. If you remove gravity, the vestibular apparatus will simply be lost.

This part of the brain is responsible for balance and dexterity. There is also a special training for him, which can really help you quickly adapt to sudden non-standard movements.

Test for the vestibular apparatus (or balance): stand up straight, use your legs to make 10 rotations clockwise, then immediately 10 rotations counterclockwise. Stop suddenly and try to stand on one leg. After this, many people are unlikely to be able to resist even two. This test shows the level of development of your vestibular system. By the way, dancing, acrobatics, figure skating, pole exercises help strengthen it well.

Over time, if it is not trained, the vestibular apparatus degrades, and it becomes more difficult for the body to adapt after rotations and sudden changes in position. Nausea and dizziness may occur. By the way, nausea from air pockets on an airplane or from sudden accelerations is a sign of a weakened vestibular system.

A good way to develop it is this:

  1. Stand straight, arms along your body or cross them over your chest.
  2. Make 10 clockwise turns using your lower back. That is, the legs are in place, everything above the pelvis rotates. The greater the amplitude of rotation, the better.
  3. Stop suddenly, listen to your feelings. If nausea occurs, do another 10 repetitions, but at a slower pace.
  4. If there is no nausea, make 10 turns counterclockwise.
  5. Enough for the first time. Repeat the exercise the next day, but double the number of rotations.
  6. Then turn on rhythmic music and do these rotations for 10, 20, 30 minutes. On the one hand, your lateral abs and lower back will be pumped up, and on the other, your vestibular apparatus will be normal. And one more bonus - if you suddenly take more alcohol than you can and feel the so-called helicopters, you will no longer run to the toilet. However, we do not recommend drinking.

Now you know how to strengthen the vestibular apparatus. You already know a couple of exercises for coordination and agility, here are a few more.

Exercises to develop coordination

Coordination exercises include, first of all, all the tests that we cited above. We’ll also add the following elements that will help improve your coordination skills:

  1. To develop our visual motor coordination, take a tennis ball, stand on one leg and throw it, catching it in turn with your right and left hand. Then throw with your right, catch with your left. And vice versa. When this becomes easy for you, take the second ball (this is what came in handy!).
  2. To improve your coordination, start playing table tennis. It's simple and fun. You concentrate your gaze on the ball and hit it with your racket. High speed and concentration perfectly develop reaction and motor skills.
  3. To develop balance, it is convenient to stand on one leg while doing different things at the same time - read a book, throw a ball, rotate your head.
  4. Do agility tests every week. Each coordination exercise helps develop it. In addition, each test is an exercise in coordination.
  5. Make coordination exercises more difficult by adding new elements. For example, try juggling two balls while standing on one leg. Better yet, jump over a low obstacle sideways, or jump alternately on your right and left feet.
  6. Another type of coordination exercise is fighting with a tennis ball. Boxers and those who want to learn how to hit quickly and accurately will really like it. Let's talk about this exercise in detail.

Fight Ball

You will need a baseball cap with a size adjuster on the back of the head, a strong and elastic elastic band, a tennis ball and a band-aid. You need to attach the elastic band to the ball with a plaster, and fasten the other end of the elastic band to the cap in the area of ​​the regulator. The length of the elastic should be slightly shorter than the length of your outstretched arm.

We put the cap on with the visor back, stand in a striking stance, hold our hands to our face, and hit the ball with our fists (with our striking knuckles). The ball flies away from you, stretching the rubber band, then returns back with acceleration. You can avoid the flying ball by leaning slightly to the side, or you can hit it with your other hand. This way you can box the ball as much as you want.

As a competition goal, you can use the number of hits or the time during which the ball is never left without a hit. Be prepared for it to fly in your face sometimes. And remember, the harder you hit, the harder you may get hit. Tennis ball- a very cunning opponent.

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