Generating More Power in Your Bowling Game

Hi there. I get asked a lot of the time customers coming in the pro shop, how can we create more power on the lane? Well, you know what, there's a lot of ways to do this. We're going to show you with your legs, with your arm, swing, even your hand, how to get this done. And it's for all types of bowlers, you have the ranker bowler, the medium revs or even the straighter player, we're going to show you how to get this done. My name is Scott Pole. I'm a four time team USA member. I've actually applied a lot of these things in my game. I wasn't always more of a higher player, but a lot of these aspects are going to help you get there a lot of great ways to find more power in our bowling game. The first way we're going to look at this is using our legs in particular, the knee bend. This first example is Haley, she's going to throw a shot, not get very low and have much leverage on the shot. And as you can tell the ball comes in and hits very flat leaving the 10 P the next ball she's going to get down much better into her slide with a good knee bend. And you can tell the ball finishes stronger, goes through the pins and we see 10 in the pit. All right, moving on from the knee bend, there's another key component to creating more power and that's being athletically ready. What we mean by that is in the set up position. You can tell the first shot here she's very upright, kind of stiff looking and not in a good position. Kind of think of a football player when they're carrying that ball over the middle. So now she leaves a shot at the 127 because her body just wasn't ready to deliver the ball in a good athletic position on the next shot here. She's going to get a little bit better position the ball, she's cradling it much more. Her knees are bent. Actually, her spine tilt is a little bit forward just like she's going to finish the shot in that direction. Well, guess what the reaction is really nice. The ball goes through the pins the right way. It picks up at the right time and she gets a nice strike moving on from the athletic position is we're going to focus on the slide foot in particular, we're going to take a look at whether it's going to be a plant shot or if it's a good slide. This first example is she's not going to slide very much and actually plant, it's kind of more of a toe heel type of finish. This causes usually a crossover shot or a pole missing the target to the left. Now, let's take a look at the slide being in a very good position and she finishes much smoother. The ball gets down the lane, saves its energy and goes through the pins very nicely for a strike. Another area of bowling where you can create more power is in the swing. We want to be very relaxed with this. We're going to show first here where a muscled swing causes a lot of issues. Typically, what happens is then we throw the ball a little bit fast as we're muscling through the swing with too much tension and you can tell the ball misses the head pin to the outside and it doesn't have a chance to hook on this next one. The arm swing is very relaxed, just a natural shot, letting it go off her hand, the ball reacts a lot stronger goes through the pins gets a strike. Another way to get more power is actually in our wrist or with our grip pressure mistake. A lot of people make is squeezing the ball or having too tight of a wrist. This also causes sometimes a pull down on the shot. If we're squeezing, we're just hoping that the ball will do it on its own instead of gripping it too hard the result you can see here another pole leaving the 36 10. Well, now in the next shot, she's going to focus on having a nice relaxed wrist, very little grip pressure and then just letting it go quick off her hand and guess what? The ball went much further down the lane went through the pins. Really nice. A great strike. All right. So the last part of more power is we're going to take a look at that non bowling arm, otherwise known as the balance arm. There's a correct way of doing this an incorrect way. First of all, we're going to show you kind of a mistake way that some people do it. If you notice her balance arm is parallel to her shoulders. In other words, being a right handed player, it's pointed straight out in the left side. What this does doesn't allow much swing to go back and forth. Now, let's take a look at a correct way to have the balance arm. This is where the balance arm is in front of the body as the swing goes in the back swing. And it kind of works as a slingshot going through. You can create a lot more power, both arms coming through together, a very good ball reaction. I'm good. Yep. All right. So Haley showed you a lot of great ways to create more power on the lane. What I would suggest get out there, you know what, try each one of these. Sometimes not everyone is just for you, but I guarantee you'll find something in there that's going to give you more power, more revolutions, more hitting action. Get on the lanes. Try it out. I bet it's going to help you a lot.