Why you grip your ball tightly and why it isn't good to do it.....

[Hammer]

You grip your ball tightly because your thumb hole is too big and not snug like it should be or you don't keep your wrist straight or a little cupped when you are swinging the ball forward. If your thumb hole is okay you will still grip it tightly if on the forward swing your wrist breaks backward because now your thumb is trying to hold onto the ball because the force of the swing is trying to pull the ball off of your hand with your wrist in this position.

If your thumb hole is okay and you keep your wrist straight or a little cupped and your hand behind the ball on the forward swing the weight of the ball should be mostly on your fingertips as the ball moves forward. Also if held correctly as the ball is swinging forward the weight of the ball will press the ball into your palm from the forward momentum.

All your thumb does is balance the ball in your hand as all of the weight presses onto your fingertips. If you don't grip tightly with your thumb it will make a fast exit at release and put all of the weight onto your fingertips which will make the weight of the ball pull off of your fingertips which in turn put good revs on the ball. If you grip tightly with your thumb all that does is slow down the revs quite a bit. Also at release not only let your thumb exit quickly but keep your fingertips bent like they are when you place them in the ball. If you straighten them at release to let go of the ball then you can say goodbye to some good revs. Tightly gripping thumb and straightening out the fingertips at release to let go of the ball are rev killers.

If you wonder why you can't hook the ball it might be because of the things above. Hand behind the ball, straight or cupped wrist, light thumb grip and keeping fingertips bent at release equals good revs and a hooking ball. If you can do this right then you can fine tune it to make the ball hook more or less. :cool:

[DLP]

Another thing to mention. If your span is too long you are going to naturally bend the thumb when you grab the ball. This will lead to gripping by instinct.
There isn't anything that can be done about this except fixing the span.

[Hammer]

Another thing to mention. If your span is too long you are going to naturally bend the thumb when you grab the ball. This will lead to gripping by instinct.
There isn't anything that can be done about this except fixing the span.

I agree with that. It seems like a span that is too wide would make it hard for the ball to come off of your hand at release. :cool:

[dnhoffman]

Took me a year and a lot of $$ redrilling to learn this

[GoodGravy]

Another way to think of this: Take a good look at your thumb....it is probably more oval shaped then round. Now look at the thumb hole in your ball. Unless you are fortunate enough to have a great ball driller who can get your thumb hole oval (I wish we had that around here by the way), you have a round hole. Oval thumb and round ball hole equals 'bad fit'.

Bad fit means you are going to squeeze the ball and based on a lot of hand mechanics and physics the results are going to be less then optimal down the lanes....