Ok- for a little background, I began playing baseball as soon as I could walk. At 9 I moved to catcher and proceeded to catch until about 20 years old. I have also bowled since I was 9 or so and it seems these two in combonation have taken a toll on my knees- specifically my left knee.

I have one video available of me bowling right now. i seem to get to the line early, anchor, and put all of the torque on my left knee. Without extra=strength advil, I can only last about 4 or 5 shots before I got terrible pains in my knee and am barely able to walk. My wife, who is currently finishing up her Physical Theraphy doctorate, says I likely have a tear in my petellar ligament which runs from the patella to the shin bone and belives this is likely due to the twisting encountered during bowling.

I am wondering if anyone has tips for better timing where the energy isn't stored and released from the knee so much.

Your swing is ahead of your feet to the point that you have to run to catch up. Try starting your swing a step later so the bottom of the back swing is straight at your side when your third step hits the floor. Right now at that point the ball is half way into your back swing. Try Step, Step then start ball, step as ball drops into swing, step ball hits top of back swing, slide and release.

I know the feeling. I used to be a catcher when I younger but I traded that in for football equipment. I sort of know where you are coming from. Sounds like your wife is right. the area that is hurt sounds like it could be torn but I'd say it is probably from the baseball unless you have a notoriously bad habit of sticking on the approach.

As for your timing, I see one major thing work with your approach in regards to timing. You're for 2-3 steps are at one speed and the all the steps after that are at a different speed. That can really screw up your timing and not allow the energy that you are gathering up to be spread without your body and the body evenly.

Two Extra Strength Advil is the way I go every bowling night. I do have ligament damage in the left that I have never had fixed. However, a year and a half ago, I tore the bursa muscles in my left hip, that immobilized my left leg. I now cannot bend well at the hip or the knee. So, a deep slide is out of the question.

I worked with my Coach on this very problem. His words were, "we have to work with what we have". So, I have developed a smoother walk on the approach. I don't push off on the step before the slide. I don't get down as I used to, and release the ball farther from the floor. It's a matter of knowing what you can and cannot do physically. With the help of cortisone shots every 6 months.

I noticed your fourth step is a short hop and a jump to the fifth step. Get rid of that and just walk. You are putting added pressure on the slide. Your slide is ahead of your swing. Slowing the fourth step may help that, and your timing too.

Your timing doesn't look bad. What you're doing is trying to muscle the ball and "throw" it instead of letting the ball swing on it's own. You're thrusting your body into the shot which is putting that strain on your knee. The other thing that doesn't help you is that you plant instead of slide. This puts a tremendous amount of strain on your knee.

You don't throw a bowling ball like you throw a baseball. You can generate 90% of the speed and power you need just with gravity getting the ball into the swing.

Just for comparison, look at how much your upper body moves. We can't see what your head is doing, but I'm guessing it's moving the same amount or more. This is from trying to throw the ball instead of letting it roll off your hand.

Compare that to someone like Chris Barnes
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3xjdDJYKqPI

There's a good slide and his upper body and head are pretty still.

Probably the biggest thing that is going to help is to start sliding instead of planting. If you actually have a tear though, I'm not sure anything is going to help all that much until you get it fixed.

This is true- I am just trying to minimize the damage and pain until I get it scoped. Thanks for the info though-you're right on all accounts. I have boon working on letting the ball "flow" through the downswing instead of muscling it, and that shot had a quite exagerated "bounce" to it which I catch myself doing occaisionally. I just bought new shoes and they should be sliding more, but I will keep an eye on things. Thanks agin!

Baseball and bowling are hard to equalize. Its really tough to get baseball players to slow down enough to roll a bowling ball. Plus if you pitch you are used to being off balance at the end. Stepping off. Which is a no no in bowling. So the biggest hurdle we've found in teaching baseball players to bowl is to keep them slow. There's no reason for a 30mph strike ball. While I understand that in baseball you catch the ball and you are throwing it immediately to its next location. Bowling is not that fast. Its more methodical. All that said, we've turned two 130 average in bowling, baseball players into 200+ bowlers. But it takes a lot of slowing down and patience.

First thing I believe is to realize that bowling is more gravity fed then baseball. So you do not engage as much muscling bowling as you do baseball. Getting the feeling of gravity on your side is tough.

Erin

I can't really comment about the form, but I might be able to help with the knee pain.

Significant ligament tear is a serious problem. Last year, I completely tore my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL), and I did not reconstruct it yet. This injury prevented me from bowling for six months.

But in your case, it seems like its been an old problem. I can suggest getting a ~40 dollar knee brace at Sports Authority or Modells. It relieved a big portion of the pain when I began bowling after my injury.

You should make an appointment to see an orthopaedic surgeon. He'll probably recommend an MRI first. It does sound like you are candidate for arthroscopic surgery. This surgery involves making two 1/2" incisions on your knee where a device similar to a miniture roto rooter is inserted through one incision and is used to trim away the loose ends of the torn ligaments and then smooth what is left of the ligaments. The second incision is used to insert a camera and light so the surgeon can see what he is doing. You are awake during the procedure but you cannot feel or move your leg. You can see the same monitor that the surgeon is using. You go home the same day. Healing time is approximately 4 weeks and you can go back to bowling. My wife had this surgery done 3 weeks ago and is back to work, but still a bit sore(she's 60 years old and probably heals slower than a 25 year old). Now is a good time to have it done (summer) and be set to go when the new bowling season starts up in September.

My teammate, a female coach, waited too long for reconstructive surgery on her knee, and ultimately did more damage. I was just informed that she just had a total knee replacement last Thursday. She'll be out til November, if then.