Improving Your Stability at the Foul Line

One of the most frequent questions we receive at Bowling This Month is, “How do I create more stability at the foul line?” As a bowler, you may experience inconsistencies at the foul line with falling off at unexpected times, or you may be someone who rarely posts a shot. We want to help you improve.

Watch bowlers such as PBA stars Francois Lavoie, Kris Prather, or Dom Barrett. They make shot after shot with consistent posting at the foul line. This repeatability at the foul line is one of the reasons they are consistently successful. The goal of this article is to share several frequent instability cause and effect sequences so you can begin to better address your instability issues, leading to an improvement in your bowling consistency.

Starting point: choose your mindset

All too often, some bowlers simply do not commit to making their best shot. Rather, due to the softening of bowling conditions and the increased margin of error on house patterns, it is no longer as valuable to post shots as it once was.

Imagine your consistency if you could post every single shot. Envision the improved success you would have when you need to make a shot to win a match, win a pot, or make a cut. If you choose your mindset and commit to posting every single shot, your training will improve and your competition performance will be better.

As a coach, one of the most important expectations I have for each bowler is a mindset of absolute commitment at the foul line on every shot. In training, bowlers must hold their finish position until the ball goes through the pins and off of the pin deck. The rationale for this level of foul line commitment is simple. First and foremost, this expectation is a catalyst for building the ...