Your Bowling Swing
By Chuck Gardner II
March 2011

    This month I would like to talk to you about the pendulum bowling swing. This is a key essential to having a consistent and repeatable arm swing in bowling. Bowling is one of the only sports in which muscle is a bad thing as opposed to other sports where applying muscle and strength is a must.

    The simplest way to explain the pendulum swing is to take a look at simple grandfather clock. If you notice the medallion in the middle just swings from a pivot point up toward the top of the clock. The medallion only needs to be started in motion and gravity will do the rest. If you compare this to your bowling swing your shoulder would be the pivot point and the ball would be the medallion. The only way the medallion will not swing in a true straight line is if is acted on by an outside force. So in bowling if we can learn to simply start our swing in motion in line with our target line, and not apply any outside force, wouldn’t it make sense that our swing would be able to swing totally in line with the target line?

    The more we just allow our swings to just happen the more repeatable it will become. The key is to allow gravity to help you take the ball into the swing and down through the bottom of the swing without using force or muscle. This will lead to a consistency in your axis rotation, ball speed and projection down the lane.

    If you have any more questions on the pendulum swing please stop into your local Bowling Solutions store and one of our skilled operators would be happy to take a few minutes to help you.

    Thank you for reading and great bowling..