Preparing for the Upcoming Season

Are you ready to take your bowling game to the next level this coming season? Perhaps with the breaks due to COVID-19 restrictions, you have found yourself feeling uncomfortable on the lanes? My guess is most people were in the same boat as I was: feeling quite rusty coming out of those longer-than-normal breaks. With this in mind, I decided to write this article about some best practices to prepare for league and tournament season.

Generally speaking, here are three goals to keep in mind while preparing for your practice sessions:

• Improve upon weaknesses in your physical game
• Practice your most troublesome spares
• Increase your accuracy and ability to repeat shots

As tempting as it is to turn on a pair of lanes and try to strike as much as you can, I fully believe in the value of improving upon the weaknesses that are hindering you from getting to the next level. Practicing your strengths may make you slightly better than you currently are, but it doesn’t increase your versatility and improve your ability to respond to adversity, which you will find when you are traveling to bowl tournaments in different centers.

In addition to improving your weaknesses, the next area I suggest you focus on is your spare game. If you are missing one or two easy spares per game, your average could improve 10 to 20 pins just by improving your spare conversions and confidence.

Finally, shot repeatability is likely something that most of us—if not all of us—could improve. The better you are at being able to line up and execute ...