Your eye-hand coordination can be trained
Eye-hand coordination is a skill that you use continuously in everyday life. Picking up a glass of water, cooking, typing, reading, writing and even playing video games; things that feel natural where your eyes communicate with your hands. Is your eye-hand coordination not optimal? Thanks to these tips you can improve this.
You use your eye-hand coordination a lot in daily life. And also in most sports, this skill forms the basis of their performance for many athletes and can make the difference in winning the prize. Could your (sports) skills use a boost? We share some tips from a well-known eye and hearing care chain to improve your eye-hand coordination.
What is eye-hand coordination?
Eye-hand coordination is the cooperation between your eyes and hands to complete a task. In everyday activities you do not have to think about this collaboration. The skill is also useful if you play a racket or ball sport, where you need to be able to react efficiently and controlled in high-paced situations.
Factors that affect your hand-eye coordination
There are several factors that can affect your hand-eye coordination, including your age and neurological conditions. As you get older, the processes in your body begin to slow down. So is the speed of the cooperation between your eyes and hands. In addition, disorders that affect brain function or physical motor skills can also affect hand-eye coordination. You cannot change that, but another factor such as fatigue can. When you’re tired, your body doesn’t function as efficiently as it could. Accurate communication between the eyes and the hands then becomes more difficult, because the brain does not process this information at the usual speed. So make sure you get enough rest.
Tips to improve your hand-eye coordination
Fortunately, you can train your eye-hand coordination. Here are some good exercises:
- Jump move: choose two objects; one about an arm’s length away and the other 3-4 meters away. Focus your eyes on the distant object and then ‘jump’ to the nearby object. Practice this ‘jumping’ between the objects, making sure each object is in focus before switching to the other.
- Throwing and Catching: This is one of the easiest exercises for better hand-eye coordination. Start practicing with short throws before moving on to high throws. Throwing the ball over with a friend, daughter or grandson makes this exercise even more fun!
- Play video games: While it is not recommended to stare at screens for extended periods without a break, playing video games is also a way to strengthen your hand-eye coordination. You react to what happens in the game by pressing the right buttons. But remember: after 20 minutes of looking at a screen, give your eyes a 20 second break to look into the distance. Also, go outside for at least 2 hours a day. This is also known as the 20-20-2 rule.
The importance of hand-eye coordination in sports
Eye-hand coordination is crucial to react quickly to the decisions of, for example, other players. For example, in tennis you have to analyze how fast and where the ball will end up and you have to take the position of your racket into account to hit the ball well. Golf is all about estimating distance and direction to get the ball in the hole with as few strokes as possible.
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