Is Bowling Good Exercise for Seniors?

Lots of healthy, not so healthy, or wannabe healthy baby boomers and aging gen Xers are looking for ways to maintain their fitness in enjoyable ways. As an obligatory baby boomer, I have stayed healthy throughout most of my life. I look critically at bowling beyond its fun and skill components. Yes, I enjoy the game. And yes, I care about improving my performance. But how much heath benefit am I really getting from hurling 14-16 pounds at 16-18 mph over and over down a slick strip attempting to knock down 10 pesky sticks of wood? Let’s find out!

Is bowling good exercise for seniors? Yes, bowling is good, mild, exercise burning about 250 calories per hour. The bowler is developing balance and strength to avoid falling down while swinging and rolling a 9-16 lbs ball repeatedly. Seniors with a wide range of fitness can gain from this full-body exercise benefit, from those who like to stroll along the approach to knock over a few bowling pins, to those who want to aggressively hurl power strikes.

There are new seniors to bowling, returning seniors, and current senior bowlers looking to deal with their aging bodies. Regardless of your reason for getting onto those lanes, there are things you can do to make your experience while bowling and during the days afterward more fulfilling.

Why Bowling is Good Exercise for Senior Citizens

Bowling is a great way to get your heart pumping and your arms and legs in motion in a focused, low-impact, challenging manner. Seniors have concerns about aches and pains, loss of flexibility, loss of strength, and even falling down and breaking something. These are real. Just sitting around will not help any of this, except you won’t fall. You need to move. Circulate that blood. You also want to keep your strength, your mobility, and yes, your balance.

Bowling to the rescue. The oldest recorded bowler was 105 years old and there are lots of current bowlers in their 80s and 90s. I was bowling with an 80-year-old gentleman a few years ago, so you can’t play the age card.

A typical bowling outing, be it league play, an office party, or a night with friends, usually involves three games. An average person will walk around the bowling alley and bowl up and down the lanes for a total of over a half-mile. Nice. She or he will burn between 170 – 300 calories in the process. Your arm will be swinging a modest weight of 9-16 pounds over fifty times while you develop strength and balance. This is a full-body workout. Like any other exercise, you need to do it properly so that you don’t injure, strain, or endanger yourself or anyone else.

From an exercise standpoint, you are doing many things: Picking up the ball involves arm and shoulder muscles. Standing and holding the ball involves proper posture and balance. Approaching the foul line to release your ball involves, leg, arm, shoulder, back, and torso muscles in a coordinating fashion to walk while swinging the ball and releasing it accurately with momentum. This includes upper body twisting and dynamically counter-balancing the weight on one side of your body. Hand-eye coordination is required. Finishing near the foul line properly requires twisting your wrist, letting go of your grip in a timely manner, lunging forward, and dynamically stopping yourself while leaving your body in a balanced pose.

Did I mention that you are stretching your joints in the process and using grip strength as well? And that you are increasing your bone density, lowering your risk for diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes? Your mental health is improving through focussing and social interaction. In fact, this is an exercise you can do with your children and grand-children on an equal footing.

You’ve got your heart pumping, you’re breathing, your blood is circulating, and, if you get that strike or even spare, you may do a little fist pump, jump, pose, or dance. Hey, that’s good exercise.

Considerations for Seniors for a Great Bowling Experience

Just like any form of exercise, you need to do it properly to have the best experience and minimize injury, strain, and harm to yourself and others.

Know what restrictions you may have with movement or bearing weight. Heed your health professionals and your own knowledge about yourself.
Have the right equipment. If you a new senior to bowling or a returning senior, get the right ball weight. Use a ball 10% of your body weight, maybe a pound or two less based on your condition. Good fitting bowling shoes are a must. If this is more than a monthly experience, buy your own shoes. Wear clothes you can easily bend in. You will be bending over and ideally lunging and sliding at the foul line. Consider wrist supports, especially if you have weak wrists. These can be frequently seen, even on professionals. Even consider knee or back supports if those are issues for your body. You can still bowl well with supports while you minimize risks to your health.
Warm up and stretch before you bowl. This is good advice for any exercise. More on that later.
Use the markers on the lanes. Use the dots on the approach to position your feet. Use the dots and arrows on the lane to aim your ball when you bowl, especially if you have weak vision. You don’t have to look at the pins to bowl your ball to your target. There are even range finder marks closer to the pins to use like the pros. Watch where your ball goes and adjust your feet and target marks to improve your bowling.
Enjoy yourself and cheer on others. Whether you bowl a strike or gutter ball, you are still getting the exercise, the opportunity to learn, and the choice to have fun.

Preparations before Rolling Your First Ball of the Night (or Day)

Okay, you have your ball, your shoes, your family and friends, let’s bowl. Wait.

With any exercise you are best to warm up and stretch first. If you can do jumping jacks or running in place safely, do a few. Definitely do some arm swings both across your chest and rotating at your sides like windmills, up and down. You are getting shoulders and arms warmed up and flexed. You also want to lift your knees like marching and do some squats and lunges within your own limits. This gets the legs warm. Flex your wrists as well. With your balling ball in hand, swing your arm back and forth. Get the feel of gripping the weight while swinging it. I told you that (going) bowling was good exercise.
You also want to check the lane you are bowling on. Is there any debris on the approach where you will be bowling? You also want to walk up to the foul line and try sliding to sense any sticky spots.
When you are ready to bowl, look at the lanes on both sides of you. It’s bowling courtesy not to get up to get your ball or even start bowling if someone else is on the adjoining approach. Wait until the other bowler has released her or his ball before taking your turn.

Good Bowling Form for Seniors

If you haven’t bowled for years then you may find that your bowling stance and motion are outdated and do not serve your aging body. Standing up straight, holding your ball at waist height, and directly facing the pins is not the best form.

To get exercise without unnecessary strain on your body, especially for seniors, you need to hold your ball at shoulder height, put your non-ball foot slightly in front of the other, and angle your body & bowling arm away from the pins so that you can easily swing your arm past your hip and leg. Tilt slightly forward at the waist. When you move forward, step in front of the other leg, leaving a straight swing path.

Balance is important so practicing stepping in front of the other foot and balancing on the front leg (back toe will help stabilize) is good. This is helpful for your first step and your final release where you want to finish in a balanced position, back foot crossed behind or toe down behind. If you feel unstable, slow down your delivery.

Ending Your Bowling Exercise

Like any other exercise, it’s good to stretch afterward. It only takes a couple of minutes. Stretch your legs by putting your hand on something stable a pull you opposite foot up behind your thigh. Hold for 20 seconds and repeat on the other side. Stretch your arms by placing your one arm across your chest. Form a cross with your other arm at the elbow and squeeze in on the elbow. Hold for 20 seconds and repeat with the other arm. Acknowledge you bowling partners with a high-five, hug, or at least a thank you. Do a happy dance and you’re done.