FRONT FOOT SLIDE VARIABILITY AND ITS RELATION TO TENPIN BOWLING PERFORMANCE

Abstract

In tenpin bowling, bowlers try to knock down as many pins as possible with the allotted number of tries. In the modern power game, they achieve this by generating a lot of momentum using heavy balls released accurately at great velocities (Strickland, 1996). It must be done consistently over many tries. Although accuracy of the front foot slide during the delivery phase seems less relevant compared to the accuracy of the ball release, its consistency is still paramount. The ability to slide the front foot consistently presumably enables the bowler to have a predictable stable base to deliver the ball more accurately. Variability in performing sports skills has been studied in various disciplines such as javelin and basketball (Bartlett, 2008), but no published data is available on tenpin bowling. In fact, published work on tenpin bowling is rather scarce; the only recent study was by Chu and colleagues (2002) which compared a number of kinematic variables in the sagittal plane between male and female bowlers. The purpose of this study was to look at how variability of the front foot slide was related to average bowling score (Bave) and ball release velocity (BRvel ). In addition, the variability of the foot kinematics between elite and amateur bowlers was also compared.