Rick’s Pro Shop & General Maintenance

Coaches corner

The number one thing everyone needs in sport but especially tenpin bowling and to become a better bowler is BALANCE.

Two things we will go through today is head positioning and upper and lower body in relation to having the ability to keep head still.

Keeping head still/quiet is a great way to get consistency in a bowlers shot and improve accuracy.

If your the sort of bowler that moves you head a lot during your swing especially at the bottom of the swing. When you induce torque and rotation you are probably thinking this will be helping powering the ball down the lanes. But in doing so your upper body tends to do more work and this generally leads to poorer accuracy and worse balance.

The ability to keep you head still/quiet tames down the upper body aggressive tendency leading to smoother actions.

General rules
For smoothness/accuracy

Upper body dominance
(worse for accuracy and smoothness)

This type of bowler muscles the bowling ball
Like the feeling of powering the shot from start to finish and likes to feel in control of all aspects of the swing at all times
But in real terms they generally have poorer balance and poorer accuracy.

Upper/lower body neutral

These are the bowlers that feel like they are not doing too much wrong.
They have ok power ok accuracy and have ok balance.
And the idea of letting the lower body do a greater percentage of the work load is scary and would give them the fear of change and average drop.
These typical bowlers get to an average of 140 to 190 and get stuck at a certain point.They then tend to bowl big week and small the next week but not progressing.

Lower body dominance

These bowlers typically have an easier time of producing a more consistent shot.
The generally have better balance a freer swing and greater smooth power and accuracy.
Repeatability is the name of the game.

In short keeping head still/ quiet and letting your legs do more work will improve your game

Another thing with your head is keeping your chin up ( literally) in your setup.
Having your head in a slightly raise position will tense the muscles in the neck naturally giving you more ability to keep head still.

Ps For people like myself where my legs don't move very well any more a solution is to quiet your whole upper body to make your legs still dominant.
That doesn't mean you can't be strong at rotation and roll it just means the swing and shoulder needs to be softer throughout the swing.

Hope this might help you in your game.
Your improvement is your own satisfaction and enjoyment.
Coaches are there to help.
But you control your level of growth and drive.

If you have found this helpful and would like more please share and leave a comment.

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