Release Your Ball Onto the Bowling Lane Surface

bowlingball.com, Originally Posted: 2/2/14; Updated: 5/5/21

If you are learning the game, there are delivery techniques which are easy to implement to help you release your ball onto the lane surface.
Getting your ball out onto the lane and not contacting the floor behind the foul line is commonly known as “loft.” Your ability to control bowling ball loft will help you regulate your release, ball speed, ball direction, and maintain a consistent rev-rate, all of which will work in helping you improve your ball reaction.
When your bowling ball exits your hand it should contact the lane surface slightly beyond the foul line. Once you are able to control a consistent loft distance past the foul line and maintain a regulated ball speed, then you can read the lane conditions and make sensible adjustments when needed.
A good objective in releasing the ball onto the lane surface is to develop a gradual descent angle so the ball bounces the least when coming in contact to the floor.
A gradual angle of bowling ball descent into the lane surface controls your skid length and helps gain a consistent ball reaction in the mid-lane.
One technique which helps you release your bowling ball smoothly as it enters the lane surface is to allow the palm of your bowling hand, which should be facing the pins, to pass your sliding leg at mid-calf elevation.
By doing so, the bottom of your bowling ball will be close enough to the floor to gain the gradual descent angle you seek and will feed into the lane surface with minimum bouncing and with maximum skid length control.
In order to get your bowling hand to pass at mid-calf elevation of your sliding leg, two things must happen or you will lose balance and delivery control.
The first thing is to make certain you use sufficient knee flex (knee bend) so your upper body arrives lower to the floor than when you are standing erect with no knee flex whatsoever.
The next thing is to allow your bowling shoulder to swing the ball at a lower elevation level than your non-shoulder.
If your bowling shoulder is perhaps two or three inches lower than your non-bowling shoulder and if you use a good amount of knee bend in your sliding step, you will be in a good position to release your ball at a good descending angle into the surface of the lane and not drop the ball behind the foul line.
With a little practice, you can improve your delivery technique and loft your ball over the line consistently. A good ball reaction relies on it.