Maintaining Cupped wrist into release

[TotallyDefiant]

Is there a particular thought process or technique that you guys use or used to teach yourself to maintain your cupped wrist down to the release? I am having trouble in this area and can not maintain the cupped wrist to keep my hand behind and under the ball at the point of release. I seem to always lose the cup right before the bottom of my swing and I can not figure out a thought process or a technique that will help me maintain staying behind and under the ball.

[Mike White]

Is there a particular thought process or technique that you guys use or used to teach yourself to maintain your cupped wrist down to the release? I am having trouble in this area and can not maintain the cupped wrist to keep my hand behind and under the ball at the point of release. I seem to always lose the cup right before the bottom of my swing and I can not figure out a thought process or a technique that will help me maintain staying behind and under the ball.

You do want to lose the cup as you are accelerating into the follow thru.

That is supposed to occur right at the bottom of the swing.

If however, you begin to accelerate a little before the bottom, and uncup on the way down, you get a nasty sounding thump thump.

As for a thought process… I'd experiment with attempting to throw both a loft, and good revs.

Throwing revs helps get the wrist cupped, while trying to loft helps stop the early uncupping.

Once you can achieve both, change the loft thought, into a "project the ball towards the target" thought.

[RobLV1]

Concentrate on feeling the weight of the ball at the base of the "V" where the index finger and middle finger meet. There are two different approaches to maintaining the cupped wrist through the release. As Mike mentioned, you can load, unload, and reload the release as many of the modern players do. You can also keep a more traditional approach and roll the hand around and through the ball ala Pete Weber. Both approaches work very well, depending on your own preferences.

[TotallyDefiant]

Mike and Rob thank you for the thought process. I have been trying to work on keeping my wrist locked in a cupped position through out the swing, however, as my swing is still in the downward motion my wrist is uncupping putting my hand on top of the ball. I think I am still producing decent revs however it is not allowing me to get the side rotation I am looking for. I can stand at the foul line swinging the ball and do a great release but once I move back for a full approach I can not repeat the foul line practice release. I have been thinking about getting a Robby Rev 2 release to try and help teach myself the proper feel. What do you guys think about this? I honestly think I may need to invest in one of these anyway since my wrist is starting to pop on a daily basis when I rotate it.

[Perrin]

I use the technique of pointing at the approach.

if you keep the 'feel' of your index finger pointing down at the approach in the backswing it forces you to keep your hand behind the ball and the wrist cupped.
It also works to help with uncupping at the bottom of the swing. as your swing approaches your slide leg to maintain the finger pointing down at the approach you are forced to uncup the wrist.

[Hammer]

If you muscle the ball on the forward swing that might be causing your hand to uncup early. Plus if you are turning your hand early before it reaches the beginning of the release area this might be causing it also. What helps that problem is at practice make your approach and forward swing and try to have your ball hand lead the shot to the release with your ring finger. What that does is keep your hand to the inside of the ball and helps you keep the cup until you hit the critical release area. What should happen then is your thumb will come out quickly and then your hand should uncup and turn just an inch or two to the inside to get the revs you want.

Keeping your hand to the inside of the ball with your ring finger leading the shot takes some getting used to. For some reason we all have the tendency to start turning the ball hand just before the release area because we get the false feeling of having more controll of the shot. All turning early does is make you lose energy in the shot and doesn't do anything for your revs either.

What will happen when you stay to the inside of the ball to the beginning of the release area your thumb will fly out and then you will feel the weight of the ball land on your middle and ring fingers. That is the time when you uncup and turn your hand just a little to get your good revs and the correct rotation on the ball to make it hook to the pocket.

[sprocket]

If your acceleration point occurs to early, then your upper arm will move ahead of your lower arm into the release zone. This causes the wrist to collapse. I would concentrate on letting only gravity dictate the downswing. It may need to feel like you are holding the ball back at the top of the swing and not letting it whip forward. It may help to feel like you are almost bringing the ball to a stop at the bottom of the swing. You don't want to actually stop the swing at the bottom but if you have been accelerating early, then losing that early acceleration may feel kind of like stopping the ball at the bottom. You may be surprised to see you speed actually increase when you get that explosion point to occur at the right place.

[TotallyDefiant]

Thank you everyone for the tips and different thought processes.

Sprocket: I honestly don't think I need my ball speed to pick up anymore than what it already is in my full swing. If I try babying my swing I am still rolling the ball 17.9-18.2 mph. If the ball speed naturally picks up with a better release at the bottom I will welcome it so long as the revs match the speed.

But in case everyone wants to see what I am talking about I did post 3 video's in the video section a couple days ago. Just keep in mind I have only been bowling for a month.