What's your practice routine?

[ArtVandelay]

Low ball; One game of shooting at the 10 pin on the first ball and the 7 pin on the second. A perfect score for this would be 20. My favorite way to play this is to shoot the 10 righty and the 7 lefty.

I used to bowl left handed for the 10 pin. I used to be a drummer and my left hand is fairly coordinated. Once i got the footwork down, i became pretty good at getting the 10 pin lefty. But then i joined a sanctioned league and was told that was illegal. I had no idea. It seems like an odd rule.

[billf]

I have a huge advantage over most: my practice games are free. The rest depends on my mood and/or what I need to work on.
To learn to play the far outside line, I used my plastic ball and threw it straight up three. If I missed, no damage was done to a good ball. Now I will play there with any ball.
I also play at least one full game of just corner pins as John described above. My best score is a 34. To figure out my best line for the ten pin I once shot just the ten pin for three hours.
Another thing I do regularly is start with one ball and work from the right to the left hitting different targets. For variation I will go from far right to far left. Going from one style to the other is the most troubling for me, this helps.

Bob is absolutely correct, accuracy is the most important aspect of the game and spares win money.

[Greenday]

It's funny, I haven't shot spare pins in weeks for practice. This week, in league, I made every single spare shot that wasn't a split (Though I did make all three baby splits).

[Tampabaybob]

It's funny, I haven't shot spare pins in weeks for practice. This week, in league, I made every single spare shot that wasn't a split (Though I did make all three baby splits).

That's great. The majority of bowlers has trouble with at least one or more spare shots and that's the idea of getting people used to shooting spares. When I teach, I emphasize the accuracy on spares will roll over to accuracy on the first ball eventually leading to throwing more strike. And yes I know there many variables involved there, but the premise is to get someones accuracy down and that in turn should raise their average. As their average goes up, so does other aspects such as wanting to bowl more, new equipment, buying coaching lessons, and maybe getting friends and family members involved in the sport.

You see the intent here is to get this sport back to where it was originally headed many years ago in popularity. We always need to be promoting. As one highly involved industry official told me a while back in a conversation we had, was if the trend of losing bowlers continues, in 20 years (give or take a few) the sport will all but disappear. I know that's hard to believe, but those are numbers they have crunched based on participation over the last 20 - 30 years. I won't be around that long but I sure hope the sport will.

Bob

[SouthpawTRK]

Thank you one and all for all of your comments, insight and bowling routine/tips! I definitely need to work on accuracy and hitting my mark; I have too much fluctuation in hitting/missing my mark. I would also say that I need to work on spares; so important to make them; yet another one of my pitfalls. I'm going to work that into my routine as well; I'd like to eliminate unnecessary open frames.

Hope that everyone has a great weekend and have a safe and happy New Year!!!

[RoccoRock]

What I've done a few times is throw the first ball, try for the strike. If I leave pins, it doesn't matter what pins I leave, I try to shoot as if the 10 pin was standing. If I can hit the 10, then I can hit anything. I do that for the first practice game, second game I shoot whatever spare are left. If I have a long practice, I work on different lines. I will play the outside, deep inside, not worrying about results, just hitting targets.

[Flyer41]

Since my dad was a big preacher on making hand adjustments instead of switching balls when lines went away, I would work on finding how many ways I could strike with a ball at the same speed. I'd start going up 5 and using soft hand to getting inside 25 and projecting out to 10 with the same ball. Of course there would be a limit to what each ball could do, but that also helped me learn what all my equipment was capable of. Since I would leave many spares during this, I would use the time to get my spare system in line also.

[Hammer]

I have been bowling on this league for 26 years but I still practice fundamentals. The first game I will practice my approach and doing a free swing without muscling the ball. The second game I concentrate on my hand with the ball. I want to make sure in my swing that my hand stays cupped and behind the ball from the backswing all the way through the release. I do this because sometimes I have a tendency to start turning my hand too early on the forward swing. The third game I work on hitting
my mark. Fourth game will be spare shooting. Fifth game I just let it all go and just bowl a game. Don't forget that in practice don't worry about your score. You'll have time to do that when you are bowling when it counts. So no matter how long you bowl you always have to practice. The pros do it and they really know how to bowl. They do this as a living so they have no choice if they want to make money.

[Zothen]

On Saturday mornings I bowl with a teammate from my sport league and an ex pro bowler(Bill Stempke)and they have me work on my footing,timing & armswing as well as being consistant in hitting my mark and spare pick ups.

Zothen

[GeoLes]

Set aside a few games for practice. You will NOT bowl for strikes or scores. The object is to note specific aspects of your deliery and to retrain muscle memory accordingly. You may roll the last game for score, but allow for errors due to new adjuatments. Here is some of what I do. Of course it is adjusted depending on the weakness I am working on.

1. Light stretch to loosen muscles.
2. Stand at foul line, swing ball at side from swing slot focusing on release over the foul lline with good release for a couple of frames (hooked, flat, and wrapped release) Note the ball may gutter without hittnig any pins. That's fine, we are intersted in revs and/or end over end roll depending on release practices.

3. backup one step, pushoff and let the ball swing, sliding forward into finish position for a couple of frames (check finish position for low, forward hips square to target) Focus on solid finish position, strong and balanced.

4. roll a coupe of frames to find strike zone with various releases just to get a feel for the ball reaction on the lanes

5. Roll flat balls at 10-pin first frame , Roll at 4-7 pin second half of frame. Work for a perfect score of 2.

8. Play strike zone from 2nd mark, working inward one mark at a time to 4th mark focusing on accuracy. You don't care about pin leaves. Just find the 1/3 pocket rolling through a variety of marks. This is an exercise in finding the pocket from various marks.

8. Finish practice drill section by rolling down first mark for accuracy. change release and note effect. Look to hit 6-10 on flat release and 1/3 with neutral release.

9. Roll a few frames with no particular focus for integration purposes. Don''t sweat it. Just roll the ball to see how it feels.

Note what happens and make note of areas that need work for next practice. Get this stuff right and the pinfall will come over time. When you get it it will be solid because you have a foundation.