Quote from: gadgetman on May 20, 2012, 04:08:21 AM

but the Robert Smiths of the bowling world have not done that well,

Top 5 bowlers this year (Earnings):
Rash
Belmonte
Fagan
PDW
Palermaa



4 out 5 have massive rev rates.

Not saying that massive rev rates are the most important thing about bowling (they're not), but to say crankers and even super crankers haven't done well is completely false.

Its just more of that old school, cave man train of thought. ”Straighter is greater” is usually their catch phrase, you can still be straight through the front and have a 500 revrate. To imply that anyone on that list muscles, helps, or forces the ball is foolish.

The link below takes you to an excellent video that analyzes various portions of the swing and release.  The last two segments show super slow motion video of some of the pros releases.  --  JohnP

Thanks John but I'm not seeing any link.

The reason your wrist support "gives you more revs" is it is keeping your wrist firm and not letting it flex back.  An additional effect of a wrist device is your thumb tends to exit the ball quicker when wearing one which is going to leave the ball on your fingers longer resulting in more revs.

If one were to believe Joe Slowinsky and other coaches, cupping and uncupping are less important than cocking and uncocking the hand and keeping the fingers in a strong position.  Check out Fagan in slow motion.  There is no question that the best release is a natural release.  But define "natural". 

Cranker or Power Release has to be learned.  There is nothing natural about it unless that is how you learned to bowl as a child. But any bowler can learn how to do it.  The question is how many want to put in the practice time to perfect it.

The statement from Handscorpio saying a statement is false is uncalled for, if read correctly, I used the word "that" which means in comparison to hundreds of strokers and tweeners over the many years bowling has been in existence.  Every walk of life has exceptions to the rule, so please, keep the nit-picking to yourself.

If the one starting this thread wishes more info on the wrist release, google ron c's coaching site, very informative.

Revs are helpful, at times, but not the essence of bowling. As clay (and charlest) stated, bowling is about repeating and controlling what you do. If revs do not come naturally, live with it or work gradually on the issue, if you feel that revs and speed do not match well and/or the lane conditions.

But for most of the time, those players who complain about a lack of revs simply suffer from a crappy release. The funny thing is that a wrist support helps in so far that it keeps the wrist staright or even cupped, helping getting a better leverage onto the ball, creating some more revs. But those artificial extra revs are futile because the basic release (e. g. topping the ball, because the wrist is firm but not the arm) is still poor.

It's so easy to delude yourself, and the bowling industry supports this attitude. More hook? Buy the next best high end ball. Or wait for the next, because it is supposed to hoom even more, etc. Or buy a wrist support - the bigger, the better. But taking that step back and admitting that EXECUTION could be the true problem, that's something rarely heard of...