Pro Shop Advice with Chris Via Part 3 ｜ Neil Stremmel's Bowling Breakdown

Welcome back PBA LBC League bowlers. We've been talking with Chris Vai and talking about tape to use in the bowling ball to help your fit and feel, but this time we're going to talk about tape that you can use and other products you can use on your hand to help your fit and feel. Let's take a look. The fingers. AJ, we had AJ talk to us one time about you know he was he was cracking on his on his fingers and he started using a certain kind of of tape on his fingers. Tell me a little more about that also. Yeah absolutely. You know sometimes it could be a fit thing but there's sometimes some people just have naturally they have drier skin and they tend to crack a little bit more than than others and yeah there's definitely some tape that you can you know place around the fingers that are going to protect that skin a little bit better. Some tape is a little bit thinner than others so you do have to make sure you check grip sizes after you you place that tape on because you know if it is a little bit thicker if it has a little bit more of a covering you may have to go up in grip sizes. Yeah and then yeah you wouldn't be able to get your fingertips into the ball again especially if it's on both sides of the thumb or finger and all the way around. Yeah it almost has to be on both sides on the fingers just because of how much friction it creates especially in the rubber grips because if it's only on one side it it naturally is probably just going to rip off after a shot or two. It also kind of depends on how tight that you like your finger grips as well. I have vacuum grips in mind which are basically there's a little bit more of a an opening at the top of the hole so naturally we use smaller grips so it allows it to expand so we can have a little bit of a tighter feel on the fingers and tape usually doesn't work so well on those because there's just so much friction and it's just such a tight feel that usually only a few shots it kind of wants to rip off. But it is something that you can definitely look into and maybe just go up a half size of grips to where that that'll allow some a little bit more room for that and you won't have to worry about cracking as much. So again for league bowlers out there so that's great for for league night and even for tournaments but again some of the first tournaments I went to next thing you know I'm bowling more than the three games you know I've torn my thumb in different spots you know I've had you know it swells up and I've had I've go through all my tape things like that is there any other advice for them as far as those kind of situations? Yeah well obviously you know when everyone says that you know their thumbs tearing up or their thumbs you know whatever they got a blister whatever well first of all double check your fit just to make sure you know people's hands change like just because you're you know you're an adult and you know you've had the same fit for 10 years probably needs change right I mean you know just as we get older you know flexibility kind of goes away a little bit more so you got to keep up with it you got to you got to do that but you know if you and your pro shop operator agree that you know the fit looks pretty good you know it's coming off your hand well all those things are checked off there's definitely some protective tape that you can put on on your thumb itself not necessarily in the bowling ball but on your thumb itself there's different levels of thickness so if you already have a pretty tight thumb hole and you like you know you like that feel there's pretty thin tape so it's not going to take up so much room and it usually comes off of the the bowling ball a little bit quicker there's not as much friction there or there's a little bit thicker tape and it comes off the thumb a little bit slower so you know if you have a you know a larger or a looser fitting thumb hole you could use that tape and it'll kind of help hold on to the ball for you if you don't necessarily like the feel of the white tape you know you can mess around with that as well so there's different levels of that that thickness and I would again I would say 95 percent of the guys you know out here are using that that tape on that on their thumb yeah you know just obviously we can bowl anywhere from you know six probably at a minimum to you know 12 to 16 games in a day depending on you know on the format so obviously those you know long tournaments and things like that those guys got to make sure that you know they don't have any issues with their thumb yeah I actually like to have a you know good texturized piece on my thumb it helps protect it it actually helps me from swelling you know because I think there's less friction then going on on my thumb and so I you know if I just take a piece of tape out and put this tape on my thumb and now I'm right back where I started yeah and so that allows and then when I have less change in my thumb then I go through less tape and I have that better feel longer yeah again it's it's kind of that it doesn't make you feel like you have to hold on to it so you don't squeeze and and when you're squeezing you're going to swell up quicker it's just what it is you're putting more pressure on onto that and it's just naturally your thumb's going to get larger and then you're going to have more issues and hey I need to open up this thumb a little bit more it's already just it's already too big well then you're holding on to it more and then you're holding it more oh man this thumb's way too big can you can you re-slug this yeah that that fit is key and I know you know this but for the league bowlers out there if you're squeezing that means you have to let go and if you have to let go you have to let go at the exact same time every time you are adding an inconsistency to your game and you're not going to bowl as well yeah and you know I like to tell people you know if your if your thumb's in the bowling ball and it's you know kind of in this narrow point like as soon as you start to squeeze if you see how much wider your thumb actually gets it has to be like you have to have a larger thumb hole for that to be able to clear yeah and so just you know naturally you have to make the thumb too big and then you have to hold on to it or else you're dropping it behind you and you're gonna look like the wee bowling characters jumping around in the background so yeah it's just it's one of those feel things where you know it's got to be snug enough to where you don't feel like you have to hold on to it for it to stay on your thumb all right good information yeah all right all right well that was a lot of detail about tape but I've gotten tons of questions about tape we haven't really talked much about it but also you know a lot of good information on the interchangeable thumb so I hope the league bowlers out there learned something I hope that was important to you and valuable to you and I hope you continue to support our sport thank you very much