Friday - May 17, 2013

high revs: fingers say OW

Ouch, my hand is pretty sore today. I’m trying to learn a new release for bowling, to get a stronger reaction from the ball. I picked up one of those “robo-brace” style wrist supports, a hinged metal gizmo appropriately named a ... gizmo. They let you get under the ball more easily, and they also allow you to turn your wrist to the inside or the outside. I matched that device with a high RPM release, which is very different than what I’m used to, because you lead with your ring finger with the index finger really splayed, and the wrist turned in enough so that the index finger is pointed to 6 o’clock throughout most of the swing. What makes it really work though is that you have to load up your middle and ring fingers in the ball so that they really snap up when you do the release. The brace is very supportive of the fingers, so they can’t flop backwards, but you still have to try to curl them as much as you can. This is a new thing for me; I’ve used a soft finger release for years.

Anyway, I threw half a dozen games and got used to it, with my scores steadily climbing from a paltry 131 to the low 200s. Elbow in, fingers through the ball at about 10 o’clock, thumb finishing at 1 o’clock on a full follow through, feeling the burn on my fingertips. That’s about what it should be, and I’m keeping my head down and forward and laying the ball right on the second arrow with just about every throw. I really can’t say if I was able to get a significant increase in my revs, but with a few adjustments to the brace I was able to get my axis angle to quite a bit more than 45° and my axis tilt to just a bit more than horizontal. In other words, I figured out how to throw the ball so that a very large part of it’s inertia was available for hooking the ball. It ought to have broken left like a shot when it hit the dry, but the best I seemed to manage was a bit better carry through the pins. Maybe the lanes were cooked; daytime conditions with tons of carrydown. Maybe I’m standing too far left; my usual position is with the point of my left shoe on the 32 board, and with this brace I was moving to the 36. So I may not be getting the reaction I want because I’m not getting the ball deep far enough into the dry, not far enough to actually find the breakpoint box, and instead staying too far inside. OTOH, maybe I don’t have the revs yet; more practice and some strength training is required. And I already know that this particular ball is drilled timidly. Instead of the abrupt “skid flip” I’m looking for, this one goes “continuous arc” down the whole lane, but worse, it does that almost entirely by flair, not by turning. It doesn’t go “out and back”. I’ve got a new ball waiting for me at the pro shop, but the guys there want to work with me to train me up for the right release before drilling the ball that way.

I might go throw 3 or 4 games this afternoon, but right now my fingers are rather sore. I’ll try standing more to the right so I can get the ball out beyond the 15 board at 45 feet. But I put the ball through that zone any number of times yesterday, and instead of a wild break I got nothing but 6 pins. The ball did nothing.

All I really want is a throw with a good strong entry angle that not only carries, but creates two opposing messengers AND has enough action so that I still can hit high pocket if my throw is off 2 or 3 boards either side at the arrows. Gee, that’s not asking too much, is it? 

Posted by Drew458     on 05/17/2013 at 08:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
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