Practice with Posture – BowlFit Tips

One factor that you can work on all day long to improve your game that often slips our minds is posture. You may be wondering how this can affect your bowling game but that’s what I’m here to explain. As a functional therapist a vast majority of the clients I see daily have poor posture whether it is from sitting at desks typing all day, students sitting in class all day, a carpenter leaning over to work on something, a mechanic hunched over trying to fix something, whatever it is you do all day you are most likely not consciously aware of your posture and it may cause unwanted issues in your soft tissues.

More and more people have what we refer to as “upper cross syndrome” from poor posture and looking down at phones all day.
posture-pain-osteopath1We also see what we termed “text neck” or forward head carriage as a result. This causes tightness in certain muscles such as your chest muscles in the front of your body like pec major and minor, and tight shoulder and rotator cuff muscles such as subscapularis and traps. The opposite muscles in the back of the body become over-stretched and weak like your rhomboids in between your shoulder blades, and rotator cuff muscles. This combination can limit the functional ability and range of motion in your shoulder. As we already know in bowling it is important to maintain a “loose” arm swing. Over the last few years I have heard many people claim they are afraid of doing upper body weight training because they will lose the ability to have a “loose” arm swing from it.

However in order to counter act poor posture all day long you MUST improve postural integrity through strength training for those weak over stretched muscles, and stretching for the short tight muscles. You should also make a conscious effort to restore proper posture in whatever it is you do all day long. Neglecting something like poor posture will lead to “tightness” and “knots” in your muscles that can affect your body mechanics!

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About Heather –

Heather D’Errico MS, CSCS, CFSC, LMT

Heather began BowlFit in 2013 with the hope to provide awareness to bowlers about how crucial training off the lanes truly is. She has been an avid bowler her entire life competing as a collegiate bowler for Robert Morris University, assistant coaching at the University of Central Missouri, and now head coaches at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY.

She obtained a master’s degree in kinesiology with an emphasis on exercise science and interned with the head strength coach at UCM. She became a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) through NSCA shortly after graduation and began coaching athletes at Next Level Strength and Conditioning in Fairport, NY.

In October 2015 she received her certified functional strength coach certification and then went back to school in July 2016 for massage therapy. She is now a licensed massage therapist and runs a business called Restorative Bodywork in Rochester, NY that specializes in movement therapy and sports massage.

Heather has also been competing on the PWBA tour the last 3 seasons and continues to use her experiences as a competitive and professional bowler to create programs for bowlers. She enjoys the challenges of making programs specific to each bowler as every person needs to focus on different areas for their performance goals. With that said her training motto is “do no harm” and believes each program should most importantly make a bowler FEEL better and play with minimal injuries/pain.