I usually only get 1 night a week to practice and am not currently league bowling. Its $11.95 all you can bowl at the center i bowl at, think after 9pm or something. I usually bowl between 7-10 games by myself. I usually get some pain the next day in my sliding side leg around the hip and thigh, sometimes knee, nothing unbearable just enough to be annoying and is usually gone in 2 days. I keep in shape and work an hour about 2 times a week including my legs, doing 3 reps of 8-10 squats using 110lbs, no pain from that but thought it might help with the bowling pain but really hasnt. Im thinking maybe I should just concentrate on bowling 3 nice slow games instead of going out there and getting all i can just because its all you can bowl.

well i league bowl on sunday's, and usually practice 3 times during the week if possible and bowl 3-6 games....but i guess its how much your body can handle... and it could also be the fact that your not giving yourself any rest when you are bowling take your time id rather take my time and bowl 6 comfortable games over 2-3 hrs than 7-10...and i usually have 2 of my friends that are on my team with me when i practice....try to get a friend or someone to go with cause the taking turns will at least give you a few min between throws so your not over stressing yourself.....i work out 4 days a week for 2-3hrs a crack, and don't have any pain...but i treat bowling like weightlifting if you rush your gonna get hurt, pace yourself and you should be just fine !!! =)

I don't know if this was too much, but once after league I was ticked at myself for screwing up, so I did the "all you can bowl" special and wound up bowling 13 more games, for a total of 17 that night (I'd bowled one warm-up game prior to league.)

You did say practicing? Well, when I practice, it is for a purpose. Unless I run out of time, and have to get home, I will stay at the lanes until I get my purpose right. I will generally prepay for 6 games each time. If I need more, I take them.

In about 20 minutes, I will go to the lanes and practice for as long as I need. They only charge $.79 per game on Sunday if you start before 10 am.

There is such a thing as too many games when practicing. At some point your body will start to get tired and you will start form bad habits and keep doing it and then that bad habit becomes part of your game. This especially true when you say you are practicing by actually bowling for score. Practicing is working on certain skills one thing at a time and not worrying about score.

If I'm practicing by myself or with one or two others I will limit myself to the equivalent of 5 games. I'll pick something to work on for each game or each half a game and every shot is used for that. Sometimes it's spares, sometimes it's my release or any number of other things that I will do. If I'm by myself I will only get one lane to help with slowing the pace down.

There are other times I will go bowling for score and for fun and I don't count those as practice. I still try to limit the games unless it is a decent size group bowling together since the pace is much slower and I won't get tired as easily, but then I still try to keep it under 7. Even when doing the all you can bowl deals I try to keep the games down. Sometimes these are the best times not to use score.

I agree with several points.

Practice with a purpose. Practice until that purpose is achieved, but not until you're worn out.

Since you're practicing, you can take your time and get it right.

If bowling makes you hurt in any way, that's not right. You should get advice from someone who knows - a bowling pro or a doctor.

Exercise is good, no matter what the reason. Keep doing that, trust me when you're old and wrinkled, you'll be glad you did.

I bowl 8 games a week with my wife on a single lane. It works for me. We bowl 6 games per hour, a pretty fast pace, so it takes 2 1/2 hours.

Lately I'm praciticng the swing slot. Before that I practiced, at various times, picking up the 10 pin, picking up single pin spares, various releases, and my stance.

I also practice different paths to the pocket, and have found that, like Dennis has said elsewhere, there's a diagonal line you can draw from the pocket to the gutter, and you want your ball to hook into that diagonal line. Once you have that in your mind, you can take any ball and move anywhere on the approach and know exactly how to throw it to get a nice hook into the pocket.

Infernocal I definitely agree with you about not practicing until you're worn out. That one night in particular I was just in a bad place mentally and needed to go off. I wasn't practicing any particular technique or anything like that.

Typical practice session for me is 3-6 games, usually with one or more goals in mind. Often, one of the games is a "10-pin" game and another is a spare ball game, and the other(s) I'm either learning a new ball or trying a different technique than what I'm used to doing. I never shoot for score in practice.

Dan, I wasn't commenting on your extreme session but responding to the original question.

I've done that as well, well maybe not as many games but have stayed after a particular bad league session and wanted to prove I was better than what I just bowled, or sometimes extended a bowling session to try to get a better score when shooting for score. I quit doing it though when I realized I was just getting more and more tired.

Since I don't turn on the auto scorer when I practice I have no idea how many games I bowl. Like others have mentioned, I have specific skiils and goals in mind when I practice. But I don't practice passed the point of exhaustion or when I can no longer concentrate and focus.

Erin

However many it takes or until time runs out. Don't think I can push it with the [censored] house I practice in on turning the auto scorer off or, come to think of it, could do it from the settee as it is. Hmm.

Today I did practice until there was blood in the new ball--Oh! blood in the ball! Stop right now. No, not new ball's fault. Damage was done yesterday during lessons, and the new one just happened to earn it today.

Anyway, Leopard, it's your hip flexors giving you trouble. Add lunges, both forward and backward same reps as your squats. Easy, nice, teevee-watching stretch is to sit indian-style on the floor, but put an ankle on top of the opposite knee--if the knee hurts, move the ankle further out and away. Just sit and keep the foot of the non-working leg flexed. Working leg's knee'll slowly drop. Rinse. Repeat. Should last through the movie of the week.

You can sit between your heels (knees together, heels apart) to stretch your quad heads--if your butt doesn't hit the floor, put a book under it for support.