When bowling, it is all about the ball having a snug fit in your hand? You might have not thought about it before, but it an important thing that you must not ignore while bowling.
Always ensure that your fingers get deeply inserted as permitted by holes. For beginners this has to be typically down to second knuckle joint on the inserted finger.
If you’re a beginner in bowling you must know that getting the right hold of the bowling ball would be the key factor in getting consistent deliveries.
Getting the tips and tricks of how can you properly get a fit of the ball can affect many factors that work in the vital delivery stage of the arm motion cycle.
Let’s get to know what would be the right method of the beginning stage, i.e. holding ball:
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What Is The Proper Way to Hold a Bowling Ball?
Picking the ball off from ball return unit has to be initiated with firmness and care. Place both the hands on ball away from where the adjacent balls accidently roll and also squash fingers.
This procedure maintains safety and avoids and helps in minimizing chances of any injury.
Now hold the bowling ball in your opposite hand that you’ll use for bowling through cradling ball in the arm which us bearing the ball’s weight.
Holding ball is about the manner in which the bowler pushes his/her fingers into bowling ball. While taking stance position on approach, you have to place thumb and fingers in the ball.
Now carefully place the bowling fingers, generally middle two fingers of bowling hand before the thumb is inside holes and is drilled into ball.
Ensure that your thumb and fingers are near the ends of ball holes. Make sure to have utmost care taken for fitting the fingers in holes in same way while you’re getting ready before bowling.
The fingers must be inserted with second knuckle joint for conventionally drilled bowling ball so ball weight can get supported through finger pads resulting in second knuckle joint.
For the fingertip grip, the fingers must be inserted to first knuckle joint with ball weight getting supported through finger pads from finger tips to first joint.
Make sure to have little bit more grip pressure on finger pads on the hand compared to the thumb pad. You must maintain consistent grip pressure throughout the whole swing cycle.
Gradually as beginner bowlers progress to becoming accomplished players and also learn for effectively releasing ball, the thumb has to get released a split second before fingers so fingers can impart rotational action. This results the ball travelling down lane with a good hooking and rolling motion.
Also, look that you’re not overgripping your ball with too much tightness mainly with thumb, which can lead to slow release thumb action at the time of delivery. Also it helps in learning ball grip consistently with medium grip pressure so you can progress in the playing skill.
Also it is recommended that all beginners buy their own ball and also have it fitted professionally to hand specifications. Improperly fitted bowling balls also prospectively result in injury to bowling hand and also adversely affect getting a fine delivery.
Bowling balls for public usage at the local bowling center are known “House Balls”, aren’t drilled specifically for anyone but instead it is ramdonly drilled with holes sized according to the ball weight rather than your hand.
Where Do I Put my Fingers in a Bowling Ball?
For accurate positioning of fingers beginners must go for conventional bowling ball grip. With getting down this grip, you can also lift the bowling balls for hunting for ones that work great and also suits you best.
Pro-bowlers are often able to experiment with shallow insertions for putting different ball spins after leaving hand.
Accurate Finger Positioning
Most bowling balls have three holes with two being side to side with another one. Typically, largest one out of three is positioned below the two. You have to put ring finger and middle finger in side-to-side holes with the thumb in other. It provides you with great control with lowest likelihood of experiencing freak injury.
Getting Right Ball Fit
Ball hole size does not really matter for house balls as long as they’re snug enough for fitting your fingers and thumb.
They shouldn’t be too tight. Also you don’t want these loose, although it is generally too much of an issue when holes are placed in right distance from each other.
Firstly insert the thumb deeply inside thumb hole. Now lay the ring and middle fingers over finger holes. When second top knuckle is over the holes middle, you’ve got good fit.
Holding Ball for Bowling
Firstly, you need to put the thumb all the way inside thumb hole like you did when you selected ball. However, now you have to insert the ring and middle fingers in other holes. The ball has to feel secure while you are holding it.
You’ll definitely want cradling ball in the free hand right when you’ve approached lane for the throw.
A lot of novice bowlers carry ball up in their one hand for throwing, but you need to consider the strain that it bears on the bowling hand. With little support from free hand you’ll notice lots of changes in your throw.
How Should your Thumb Fit In a Bowling Ball?
With too much tight fitting thumb and other fingers, your thumb doesn’t release easily at the time of delivery while throwing the ball. It majorly impacts accuracy of the ball throw.
So, more than medium grip would be the thing if you want the bowling ball to smoothly slide off your fingers.
Thumb holes that are either too tight or too loose don’t form adequate fit for the thumb or can certainly result in errant ball deliveries. Thumb ball holes can be quite loose when they’re not contoured for fitting shape of the thumb.
Rarely the bowler’s thumbs fit round perfectly so it is also necessary for shaping the thumb hole for custom fitting thumb to drill.
Having oval type thumb drill is also good way for getting a good fit. When hole is tight on the thumb halfway down hole but large and loose at or near the top of ball, the hole won’t fit properly in the thumb and the release will get affected from its consistency.
With proper fitted thumb hole you can use a tight fitting hole rather than a loose hole and get a clean throw quickly while releasing.
Avoid bending knuckle down inside hole but instead you can use equal grip pressure on thumb length behind knuckle. When the hole has proper fit, you can actually relax the thumb also make use of grip pressure for holding ball and getting a smooth release.
People are different and depending on the size and shape on each hand, the fit might be similar to another bowler or can be notably different. Regardless of it, all ball fits aren’t equal. You can also ask friends about anything that works well for them might not be helpful for you.
