Fixing The Most Common Bowling Problems
What would your idea of “fast feet” be? I can tell
you, this is one of the biggest problems of a
bowler! Fast feet occurs when your feet are ahead of the
swing during or at the end of the
approach. The bowler only feels a little off balance or
he/she may be turned sideways at the end of
the approach. The “fast feet” phenomenon may also
concern other areas of the bowler's game,
such as dropping the shoulder, inconsistent releases,
lack of follow through and inability to stay
down with the shot and maintain balance at the foul line
in the post-position.
How can you solve this problem? Here are common causes
and solutions for fast feet problems:
The Problem: Poor ball placement
The ball placement is essential to timing. Fast feet is
related to poor placement of the key step (the
first step in a four-step delivery and the second step
in a five step delivery). Another important
issue is pushing the ball in an upward direction from a
waist high position.
The Solution: This might be translated as a simple
movement that slowly places the ball toward
the target downwards. When the heel of your step touches
the floor, you try to time your ball
placement. Here’s a tip for you: think to yourself
during the key step to step and only after that,
place the ball!
The Problem: Shoulders too far forward
This causes extra bend at the waist level and not enough
bend at the knees level, therefore the
ball reaches the lane too early allowing loss of
leverage and an unbalanced feeling in the
approach.
The Solution: Shoulders should be erect and knees
slightly flexed. As you begin your approach,
the knees should gradually deepen their bend upon
sliding without causing any strain. At the end
of the approach, your waist should be slightly bent
forward. As a general rule, the deeper the knee
bend when sliding, the less the waist needs to bend.
The Problem: Key step too long
This means that all your steps are too long and so the
swing will float through the approach
resulting in no power. Usually, five step approaches
must watch the length of a second step.
The Solution: Try taking a normal walking step and the
rest of the steps will fall into place. At a
five step, the first step is for momentum and usually
shorter than your normal key step.
The Problem: Walking on toes
In this situation you will have too much speed in the
approach and your shoulders wil be too far
forward. This also causes loss of leverage.
The Solution: Here you must place the heel first and
toes last in each step. This way the
approach is smoother and you can slow down the entire
approach. Since the approach builds
momentum from the back to front movement of your feet,
the leverage will increase.
The Problem: Muscled armswing
You must apply this correctly, otherwise becomes
detrimental to timing, leverage and overall
consistency of the armswing and it may also cause injury
and pain in the wrist, arm and shoulder.
The Solution: When swinging the ball, it should come
from the shoulder with a minimal amount of
muscling. Practice on relaxing the armswing. For example,
imagine your arm is like a wet noodle.
Let the noodle swing freely from your shoulder, allowing
the weight of the ball to direct the swing
throughout the approach.
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