Improving Coordination and Athleticism with 5-10-Year-Olds: If You Only Have 10 Minutes…

I was talking with a coach of 7- and 8-year-olds the other day.  She wanted to know what daily exercises I would recommend helping her young athletes improve their coordination and athleticism if they only had 10 minutes.

 

It’s important to note that any physical activity a child enjoys doing is going to help them build the physical and mental machinery to be active in the long term.

 

When faced with the challenges of time, training space, and willingness for kids to participate, there’s a few simple activities that can deliver a big athleticism bang for their buck with 5–10-year-olds.

 

The exercises and activities in the 10-minute circuit below can be done daily as a warmup or a circuit to help lay the foundation for lifelong coordination and athleticism.

 

Running and/or Skipping

The more kids can run, the better. The benefits of this go beyond developing aerobic fitness.

 

When you’re watching a 7-year-old move around on two feet, realize they’ve probably been doing that for just over 5 years. Add a ball, other people, and the tactics of sport, and you can see they have a lot of new stuff to manage.

 

Whether it’s jogging laps with their friends at a school-sponsored “run club”, playing chase games with their friends, or sports drills that emphasize running, doing these activities daily solidifies this relatively “new” movement pattern.

 

It also improves their aerobic fitness, helping kids feel more confident and competent when they’re moving around in a sport or physical activity.

 

Skipping should be integrated as a warmup or interchanged with running in order to help develop the coordination and rhythm necessary to improve running technique. Deconditioned kids will often struggle with running activities, so skipping shorter distances may be more enjoyable, increasing the likelihood they’ll participate.

 

In smaller areas, feel free to interchange running and skipping. Obviously, skipping isn’t a tactical movement for sports, however, the positive impact it has on running technique is worth the time and energy.

 

Activity (2 minutes): RunSkip

• Set up cones roughly 20 yards apart
• Instruct the athletes to run to the cone and back as fast as possible
• Immediately afterward, instruct kids to skip to the cones and back
• Repeat the above series 5 times

 

1-Leg Balance

A lot is going on when young athletes do something as simple as balancing on one leg. Again, young athletes are learning how to pilot a relatively new machine. Balance is one of the most important aspects of what helps this machine stay upright as the demands of the environment change.

 

Unless we’re talking about a gunny sack race, most sports or physical activities are done transitioning from one foot to the other through some form of walking, running, bounding, etc. In order for this transition to happen effectively, the proprioceptors on the bottom of the feet and in the ankles have to learn to communicate important information to the brain.

 

This information, combined with vestibular feedback about head positioning from the inner ear is used to create adjustments throughout the entire body in order to keep a stable base of support.

 

Balancing on one leg helps young athletes focus on developing the proprioception, vestibular awareness, strength, and body awareness to feel more confident with the different demands of sports and other activities.

 

Activity (2 minutes): 1-Leg Spelling

3 sets of 20 seconds on each leg

 

Crawl

Crawling is the original “whole body” exercise. In this prone position, the muscles of the hips, shoulders, core, and just about everything else have to integrate to create effective movement. The compression on the shoulders, wrists, and hands helps develop strength and proprioception through the involved muscles and joints.

 

The prone body position requires the ankles to dorsiflex and the hips to flex at a relatively sharp angle when the hips are kept near parallel to the ground. When this happens, the brain learns and practices the patterns for hip flexion and ankle dorsiflexion. These are foundational for important movements like jumping and running.

 

Activity (2 minutes): Imaginary Animal Crawl

4 sets of 20-30 seconds, or 20 yards

 

Hops and Jumps

For kids to navigate a space effectively during a sport or activity, they have to learn to propel themselves in different directions. From a biomechanical standpoint, this means the proprioceptors in their joints and muscles need to learn to absorb and release energy elastically- like a rubber band.

 

Hopping (one leg) and jumping (2 legs) highlight the elastic components of muscles and tendons. When kids do these activities frequently, these muscles and tendons become more effective and efficient at absorbing and releasing energy.

 

The result is young athletes that are more confident and competent at quickly propelling themselves in different directions.

 

Activity (2 minutes): Popcorn Jumps

6 sets of 10-20 seconds

 

Lateral Shuffles

When the environment in sports or other physical activities requires kids to move laterally, it is a very different skill set than moving in a straight line. If you’ve worked with young athletes, you’ve seen them struggle when shuffling laterally.

 

Most of the time when kids move in different directions, they’re running. A relative few sports and activities require lateral shuffling as the primary movement pattern.

 

That being said, learning this skill helps kids feel more confident whether they’re shuffling or running in a non-linear path.

 

When a child shuffle laterally, they don’t have the wide field of visual feedback available with moving forward in a straight line. The proprioceptors in children’s feet and ankles have been trained to respond to the walking/running motion.

 

Practicing lateral shuffles trains the feet and ankles to manage non-linear feedback so they can create and control force in this unique pathway while transmitting balance information to the brain.

 

Developing confidence with balance during lateral movement is important. When kids move forward in a straight line, they know that if they trip, most likely the corrective “kickstand” created by a foot shooting out in front of their center of mass will keep them upright. Or, it will at least slow their fall to the ground.

 

When moving laterally, there is no kickstand. If they trip with their lead foot, momentum will carry them straight to the ground unless they’re able to quickly orient their hips to face the direction they were moving. Young athletes are often timid when moving laterally because of this.

 

Practicing the lateral shuffle frequently helps young athletes develop the balance, coordination, and confidence to move in any direction.

 

Activity (2 minutes): W-Drill (Lateral Shuffle)

Cones at about 10 yards apart

5-6 times through

 

While there is an endless list of skills kids need to become physically literate and athletic, spending 10 minutes a day, on most days (with all of the above) will help create a strong foundation of the ability and interest to be active and athletic for life.

 

 

 

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