What do you read if there's no button pressed ?
If that's > 900, then you might simply map your analogRead(0) to 5 areas
0 ... 100
100 ... 240
240 ... 380
380 ... 560
560 ... 800
using some
enum direction {RIGHT, UP, DOWN, LEFT, SELECT, NONE} dir;
if ( val < 100 ) dir = RIGHT;
else if ( val < 240 ) dir = UP;
else if ( val < 380 ) dir = DOWN;
else if ( val < 560 ) dir = LEFT;
else if ( val < 800 ) dir = SELECT;
else dir = NONE;
After that you can use your dir variable in switch statements or check it immediately:
if ( dir == UP)
{
counter +=0.010; // 10 msec units
lcd.setCursor(4, 1);
lcd.print( counter ); // defaults to 2 digits
delay (10); // to have a speed of roughly +1.00 per second
}
Edit: minimize float arithmetics, avoid unnecessary division.