Sometimes you can spot a bowler before they even pick up a ball. A thickerthumb, a bigger forearm or one sleeve that fits a little tighter can even giveaway which hand they bowl with. You don't have to look far. If you bowl, the thumb, forearm and bicep of yourbowling hand are probably visibly bigger than on the other side. At least mineare. Bowling asks the two sides of your body to do very…

Most bowling balls that will not hook are thrown with the hand behind or under the ball, thrown too fast for the bowler's rev rate, or have a cover with too little friction for the oil on the lane. A plastic house ball, or a reactive ball soaked with oil, will go almost straight no matter how hard you try to spin it. In most cases it is a release problem first and an equipment problem second.…

Rev rate is how many times your bowling ball turns in one minute, measured in revolutions per minute (rpm). Most one-handed bowlers sit somewhere between 300 and 350 rpm, with about 325 rpm as the average, while two-handed bowlers often go well past 500. Your rev rate comes mostly from your release: how your wrist, fingers and timing work together as the ball leaves your hand. The number on its…

Most adults burn roughly 200 to 300 calories an hour of bowling, which works out to about 50 to 65 calories for a game bowled alone and 200 to 300 for a game shared by four people on one lane. The 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities puts bowling at 3.0 to 3.8 METs. At the top of that range, it matches walking at a moderate pace. The real number depends on two things: how much you weigh and how…

The odds of bowling a 300 game are usually quoted as 1 in 11,500 games for an average league bowler. That number is repeated everywhere, but it does not come from USBC data. Your real odds depend almost entirely on one thing: how often you strike. A bowler who strikes in half of their frames has about a 1 in 4,100 chance in any game. A bowler who strikes 30 percent of the time is looking at about…

For many bowlers, the car is a second storage room. The bowling bag rides to leaguenight and to tournaments, and sometimes it stays in the trunk until the nextone. So can you leave a bowling ball in the car? Short trips are fine. A bowling ball in a hot car only gets into trouble whenit is left there long enough to pass 125°F (about 51°C), the limit the bigmanufacturers write into their…

A good bowling average for a casual bowler is roughly 100 to 130. A regularleague bowler usually sits somewhere between 160 and 190, and anything over200 is strong at any amateur level. On the PBA Tour, the highestlevel of professional bowling, the ten players on the 2026 Player of the Yearballot averaged between 217.35 and 229.79, on oil patterns much tougher than anormal house shot. What…

Your thumb usually gets stuck in your bowling ball because of fit: a thumbhole that is too tight, or a pitch or span that holds the thumb in the balltoo long. Swelling, too many layers of tape and squeezing the ball at release turn asmall fit problem into a hang-up on almost every shot. The fix depends on whether the problem is the hole, your hand or your release,and most bowlers have a bit of…

Most reactive bowling balls should be resurfaced every 50 to 80 games. MOTIV tells bowlers to have a pro shop resurface the ball after about 50 games, and Storm puts the interval at 60 to 80 games, with oil extraction every 30 to 50 games in between. The real answer depends on how often you bowl, which coverstock you throw and how hard the ball has to work on the lanes you play. The game count is…

A modern reactive bowling ball usually stays close to its best for roughly 100to 300 games, according to manufacturer guidance. With regular cleaning, oilextraction and resurfacing, many balls stay useful for 300 to 600 games ormore before they need replacing. A plastic spare ball can last for years,often until it cracks or gets badly chipped. So the real answer is: it depends on what the ball is…

A note from the coach: The core idea of “The Boxes” is not something Icreated, but it is one of the most powerful mental tools in sports. This ishow I teach it to my athletes to help them take control of their game, oneframe at a time. There is a hidden moment in every bowling match. It happens right after yourball hits the pins, before you pick up your next ball, step onto the approachor make…

Someone tells you to move two boards left and aim between the second and thirdarrows. You look down the lane, see a few markings and wonder how everyoneelse knows exactly where they are throwing the ball. Once youunderstand those markings, that advice becomes much easier to follow. As you probably know, a standard tenpin bowling lane has 39-boards, withseven familiar targeting arrows on boards 5,…