Practice Plans to Sharpen Your Skills

In my years of coaching, most of the private lessons that I do boil down to a few key drills and activities. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced veteran, you can improve your skills by focusing on a few main areas in your practice sessions.

By no means is this article an attempt to replace one-on-one coaching. Nothing can replace an expert set of eyes to help correct specific issues in your game. That being said, most bowlers struggle with how to approach their practices when there’s not a coach present. What should you focus on? How do you go about practicing it?

This article will break down the fundamental chunks of training that every bowler can apply to improve their game. For the purpose of this article, we’ll treat it as a four-week plan, where the focus is on one element per week, but you can break these down and focus on each element for however long you wish. The order of the work is important, but how long you spend on each one will depend on you, your comfort level, and your goals.

The four chunks of the approach

In Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code, he argues that deep practice is the key to achieving excellence in any domain. One aspect of that deep practice is called “chunking,” where a larger technique or skill is broken down into smaller “chunks.” This simplifies the process and allows the learner to focus on a specific element before integrating it into the larger overall skill. In bowling, we do this when we isolate a specific element of the overall approach, such as the armswing or timing.

When it comes to building your game and planning practices that are most beneficial, I suggest looking at four fundamental elements: the start, the swing, the slide, and the release.

In my experience, these are the most valuable areas to focus on in your practice, and they are valuable for ...