Coordination abilities are understood as the ability of a person to coordinate and subordinate individual movements into a single, holistic motor activity.
For effective formation of coordination abilities it is necessary to work out specific ways and means of improvement of corresponding kinds of coordination abilities taking into account their place and role in the general system of human motor activity on the basis of the general approach to Physical education. Hence, the need to classify coordination abilities.
In the case of children's sports, the following most significant and fundamental coordination abilities of a person in the process of motor activity management can be identified:
— ability to react;
— the ability to balance;
— orientation ability;
— differentiated ability, the varieties of which are the ability to differentiate spatial, temporal and force parameters of motion; rhythmic ability.
The ability to react is the ability to quickly and accurately begin movement according to a certain signal.
The ability to balance is the ability to maintain a stable position of the tap in a variety of movements and poses.
Orientation ability is the ability to determine and change the position of the body in space and time, especially taking into account changing situations or moving objects.
The ability to differentiate is the ability to achieve high accuracy and efficiency of individual parts and phases of movement, as well as movement in general.
Rhythmic ability is the ability to detect and implement characteristic dynamic changes in the course of a motor act.
The main means of training coordination abilities are physical exercises of increased coordination complexity and containing elements of novelty. The complexity of physical exercises can be increased by changing the spatial, temporal and dynamic parameters, as well as due to external conditions, changing the order of location of the means, their weight, height, changing the area of supports or increase its mobility in exercises on balance, and so on; combining motor skills; combining walking with jumping, running and catching objects; performing exercises on a signal or at a limited time. The methodical method of presenting additional information is particularly effective. For example, the use of a mirror or reference points to control movement makes it easier to master the skill. Limited or complete exclusion of, for example, visual information (glasses, closing eyes, darkened room) makes it much more difficult to perform motor activities.
The widest and most accessible group of means for training of coordination abilities is the general preparatory gymnastic exercises of dynamic character, simultaneously covering the basic groups of muscles. These are exercises without apparatus and with apparatus (balls, gymnastic sticks, ropes, etc.), relatively simple and quite complex, performed under changed conditions in different positions of the body or its parts, in different directions elements of acrobatics (somersaults, various roles, etc.), exercises in balance.
For education of ability to quickly and expediently reconstruct motor activity in connection with suddenly changing conditions, highly effective means are mobile and sports games, cross-country running, cross-country skiing.
Special exercises to improve coordination movements are developed taking into account the specifics of the chosen sport and profession. These are coordination and similar exercises with technical and tactical actions in this sport.
Two groups of such means are used at the starting training:
The introductory, contributing to the development of new forms of movements of this or that sport.
They are aimed at the development of coordination abilities, manifested in specific sports (for example, in basketball special exercises in difficult conditions — catching and passing the ball to a partner while jumping over a gymnastic bench).
Exercises aimed at developing coordination abilities are effective until they are performed automatically. The son-in-law, they lose their value, as any exercise based before the skill and performed in the same constant conditions of motor action, but stimulates further development of coordination abilities.