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Increasing ball speed I received four emails and had a couple of conversations on the concourse about tactics to increase ball speed – all by my senior bowlers. From a conventional coaching standpoint, increasing ball speed (or decreasing it) is a Keglers function of a player’s orner footwork. With an identical arm swing and a quiet arm, a ball will travel at different speeds, depending on the speed we walk toward the foul line. Low ball speed is defined as being Duane less than 14 mph at Wilson the release point. As a ball travels down the lane, it increasingly encounters friction, as the dressing decreases to the end of the pattern at 40 feet on your typical house pattern, where it ends with the balance of the lane being dry to the pins. So why is low ball speed a problem? If a ball exits the oil pattern too slowly,
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JANUARY 13, 2017
SPORTS
Photo courtesy of Tammy Douglas-Dodson
he Liberty Lions junior varsity girls’ water polo team recently collected $255 for Kaleidoscope Cancer Connection during the Lions’ JV Delta Shootout. Kaleidoscope is a nonprofit organization, with a mission to provide hope and connection to people living with cancer in East Contra Costa County since 2003. The tournament featured more than a dozen teams from around the Bay Area and a raffle dedicated to breast cancer prevention.
it engages the lane too soon and rolls out; it rolls at a 1-to-1 ratio of distance to its diameter. At this point, it has completely stopped hooking by giving up all of its energy to the lane and its ability to deflect off the pins for necessary pin action. More ball speed will get the ball out of the pattern and, hopefully, within 2 feet of the pins before it rolls out, resulting in higher scoring. Approach faster. Easier said than done for my seniors. My solution for seniors breaks away from conventional coaching and deals with the pure physics side of the sport. I recommend three things to increase ball speed without approaching faster to the line. One, decrease the weight of ball you use – this will allow you to do the next thing. Two, hold your ball higher in your stance at setup, which will increase your backswing. A ball falling from a higher point will have a greater velocity at release. Three, when decreasing your ball weight, make a change to a ball that is pure urethane or polyester (plastic). Changing to these types of balls won’t increase your ball speed, but they will help retain it from the release point, as they don’t engage the lane and succumb to friction, thus losing ball speed. Your speed at the pins will be much closer to your release speed than with more aggressive coverstocks, and rollout will be a thing of the past. I used to bowl exclusively with 16-pound equipment and then about 10 years ago, I dropped down to 15. I made a change to 14 just last week, shooting 211243-279 for a 733 series. I felt much more comfortable with the new weight, and I’m sure you will as well. Talk to your favorite pro shop about what you want to accomplish, and they’ll have you back on the lanes with higher ball speeds, higher scoring and at a fairly low cost.
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22A
E MEDA NZ AWARD
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2016