Does Keeping Your Back Foot on the Ground Durring the Slide Help Consistency?

[Josch]

Two weeks ago in my youth league the coaches emphasized not lifting your foot durring the slide in our warm up. Both weeks had much higher scores than usual from people in the league, my self included. I bowled a 167, a 192 and a 198 the first week which was my best league game and series ever. The second week the scores were still higher than usual. I bowled a 200, a 176, and a 169 and then today in practice I bowled a 216, my all time best. Does keeping your back foot on the ground durring the slide actually improve consistency?

[The Mayor]

It will improve your balance which in turn improves leverage, so yes it can be very helpful to your game.

[vgw]

It sounds like it worked for you. It depends on what type of bowler you are and other mechanics in your delivery. Keep it up. For me, I bowl relatively fast and I need to kick up my leg or I'll fall onto the lane.

[billf]

That's the great thing about this sport, there is no correct answer that fits everybody. Most of what is taught is good for the high percentage of players but there are always exceptions. That's why it's best to try everything, keep what works, discard what doesn't. But remember what didn't work. Just because it didn't work for you this month doesn't mean it won't later in your playing life.
Good job with the improvements! Keep up the hard work and ENJOY the game.

[martin]

it depends on the bowler really.. keeping the back foot on the ground helps balance.. but some ppl can just stay well balanced lifting their foot off the ground (PBA bowlers included)

[dgz924s]

I had a guy tell me the same thing, to keep my right foot planted. At first I could not grasp that as the purpose of my right foot leaving the floor was balance. He went on to tell me when I raise my foot my shoulders turn closed at the foul line thus my roll took a path to the 7 pin. Made sense so I practiced on my tile floor at home keeping the right toe planted and then looking at what direction my shoulders were pointing. I noticed that the planted foot kept me square at the line versus lifting. So in a sense the left foot is a pivot point and is kept in check by the planted right toe. It worked, only problem is practicing enough to get the muscle memory to sink in and get comfy with the new approach.

[got_a_300]

As billf said ("there is no correct answer that fits everybody") what works for one may not be
the right thing for another to do. It is just like you can not copy someone else's style of approach or
ball release / delivery you have to create your on style of bowling and decide what works best for you
and stick with it.

[billf]

Earlier this week I went to work on correcting a timing issue. Video showed me that for some reason I started putting my balance forearm on my slide knee. I'm not sure when I started doing this or why. I do know that when I lost my eyesight (work accident) in Nov 2010 my speed went way down. I expected that. When my sight returned the speed didn't. Fixed the balance arm and focused on leaving the foot on the floor, the speed and accuracy both returned and feels so much better.

[chrono00]

yea, I can see it not working for everybody. really whatever works for you is best I guess. but the key is consistancy. if you don't keep your back foot on the ground, be sure it's like that everytime, or vice versa.

[swingset]

If I lay the ball down, my right foot stays down. If I create a little loft, the right foot comes up a bit, but it's consistent both ways...which IMHO is more important than where it's at on delivery.