Whether you’re drilling a fastball out of the park or commuting through busy streets on your way to work, eye-hand coordination is an invaluable (and often underconsidered) component of what it means to be healthy. It’s necessary for a host of daily activities, from typing and writing to protecting yourself against falls. And it’s not something that you’re either born with or not—it’s a skill that can be developed, just like any other physical ability.
“Healthy eye-hand coordination means having your hand in the right spot and ready to make the correct movement at the right moment,” explains Marcus Lam-Peters, a Men’s Health Strength in Diversity performance trainer based in Lloydminster, Alberta who works with athletes requiring this skill, such as hockey players. “In order for your hand to know where it needs to be, your brain must process the information it receives from your eyes and adjust accordingly.” So improving eye-hand coordination is about strengthening this connection between stimulus and reaction.
4 Exercises to Practice Hand-Eye Coordination
This is a matter of repetition rather than intensity, Lam-Peters emphasizes. “It doesn’t happen overnight,” he says. “But putting in just 5 to 10 minutes a day, two or three days a week, can improve eye-hand coordination.” Use these four exercises from Lam-Peters to enhance yours today.
1. Wall Bounce
This drill develops your tracking ability. “A key part of eye-hand coordination is the ability to track something,” says Lam-Peters. Stand about 10 feet from a wall, holding a tennis ball. Throw the ball off the wall and try to catch it. Start by catching with two hands; once you’re comfortable with that, try it with one. To make it harder, have a partner throw the ball, so you can’t guess the direction it will go in advance. Take turns testing each other. To further increase the difficulty, use a reaction ball with uneven surfaces that bounces in an unpredictable manner.
2. Ball Drop
This helps you develop fast reflexes and strong eye-hand coordination concurrently. Hold a tennis or lacrosse ball in one hand, extended out in front of you. Drop the ball and try to quickly move the same hand underneath to catch it before it hits the ground. If you’re not successful on initial tries, don’t worry—your reflexes will build over time. Since you don’t even need to be standing to do this, it’s a great exercise to sneak in at work, or throughout the day whenever you have a spare few minutes.
3. Cone Drill
“With eye-hand coordination, we’re often talking about things that are happening in a very small window of time,” Lam-Peters says. “This drill trains your brain to quickly process stimuli.” Place three cones on the ground a few yards apart, with a different number assigned to each. Have a partner call out numbers in a quick sequence and run to touch each corresponding cone as fast as you can. “Your brain has to make these decisions in a very short window,” Lam-Peters says. Experiment with different cone arrangements to challenge yourself.
4. Ladder Drill
“To have good eye-hand coordination, you need to feel comfortable with your place on the ground,” Lam-Peters says. In other words, improving your coordination is a holistic task that includes overall balance. In this spirit, place an agility ladder on the ground, then assign a code word to various directions of movement. (For example: forward can be “blue,” backward “red,” stop “yellow,” and go “purple.”) Have a partner shout these words and navigate the ladder accordingly. This will train your brain, limbs, and eyes to work fluidly together.
Don’t Forget Your Eyes
No matter how much you train, eye-hand coordination isn’t merely a question of exercise. It’s also about taking active steps to safeguard your overall eye health—and that goes deeper than just having an up-to-date prescription for your glasses. “Good vision on an eye chart does not mean healthy eyes,” says Jeffry Gerson, OD, an optometrist based in Olathe, Kansas who is a spokesperson for the PreserVision eye vitamin brand. “People can have serious eye conditions without presenting noticeable symptoms until they reach a more advanced stage. That’s why scheduling annual comprehensive eye exams by an eye-care professional is important.”
Along with conditions such as cataracts and glaucoma, which impact the lens and optic nerve of your eye, respectively, your eye doctor might screen for age-related macular degeneration (AMD)—the leading cause of vision loss in adults over the age of 65. “AMD causes the macula—the part of the eye that we use for fine, detailed vision—to break down,” Dr. Gerson says. As the condition worsens, it becomes progressively more difficult to see fine details in our central field of vision. While there are a host of lifestyle risk factors for AMD, including imbalanced nutritional habits, obesity, and smoking, 45%-70% of AMD is estimated to be due to genetics.
He adds that anyone diagnosed with AMD should consider asking their doctor about PreserVision AREDS 2 Formula Eye Vitamins, which contain the exact nutrient formula recommended by the National Eye Institute to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced age-related macular degeneration progression*. “The AREDS2 clinical trial showed us that this specific vitamin formulation can decrease the risk of macular degeneration getting worse,” says Dr. Gerson. “You’ll know if it’s right for you by having your eyes examined and discussing it with your eye-care professional.”
*This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
