Better Balance at the Foul Line – John Gaines Coaching Corner BowlerSmart.com

Are you having issues falling off to one side at the foul line or hopping at the end of your approach to keep your balance? Hopefully a couple of these tips will help you.
Believe it or not, your starting position of your body or stance can greatly affect your finish position. The stance should be comfortable and easy to get into. There shouldn’t be a whole lot of gyrations or thinking to get into the proper stance. The shoulders and spine angle should be just slightly forward, but no more than 15 degrees. Knees should be slightly bent. Your weight should be evenly divided on your feet and not have too much weight on your heals or toes.

As you start your approach, the spine angle and shoulders should remain quiet and steady. Do not allow your shoulders to get too far out in front of you. You should really feel like your shoulders remain over your hips. This gives you a solid center of gravity and makes you use your big leg muscles.

Your approach should start out slow allowing for a gradual increase in tempo. You will sometimes hear the phrase “your feet are too fast”. Your feet really can’t be too fast. This is a sport and all sports, to create power and leverage which comes from the legs, requires you to accelerate. There is no doubt that you don’t want to run to the line. But you do have to accelerate to create proper leverage using the legs.

As you get to your last step or slide, you should have some knee bend. It doesn’t take as much as most people think. You don’t have to get really close to the floor. Just a simple comfortable knee bend is all it takes. You also don’t want to drop way down at the last second. Just a gradual soft knee bend is great. Try and keep those shoulders and head somewhat steady. Don’t raise up or pull the shoulders back. This is usually caused by not having your chin just over your sliding knee at release.

The last tip would be better use of your trail leg or non-sliding leg. If your trail leg is up in the air, it’s because your spine angle is too far forward and is acting like a balance beam so that you don’t fall forward. If your trail leg gets too close to your body, it is because your are pulling your shoulders back and standing up too much.

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Bowlersmart.com

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BowlersMart opened their first store in 2004 in Hudson Florida as Cliff Barnes' Pro Shop. Our goals were simple:
1) Offer the best customer service at the lowest possible prices.
2) Have a wide variety of inventory readily available for same day service.
3) Have clean, bright well merchandised stores.
4) Help our customers enjoy the sport as much as possible so they can reach their goals.
5) Help grow the game of bowling by repeating steps 1 through 4.

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