Lower Back Pain From Bowling

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To be honest with you Stanley, I suspected a stress fracture but as I cannot feel my way around your back, I was very concerned that you had an x-ray or MRI scan prior to any treatment. Sometimes deep tissue massage can make the situation worse without knowing what you are dealing with. I really cannot encourage you get an x-ray or MRI scan enough. Personally, as a soft tissue specialist, I would not touch you without seeing scan results. Go back if the issue continues and persist.

As for touching your toes, you need to hinge at your hip and not bend your back at all. Try this...

Put your hands behind you and place your palms on the top part of your buttocks. Squeeze your elbows together. Now lower slowly with straight legs, making sure your back does not bend but kept straight. Only go down as far as you can without it hurting. It really does not matter how far you go down... just that you keep your legs and back straight!
 
Hi Stanley.

Back pain often arises when the back is being asked to move in too many frames simultaneously. Your bowling action involves lateral twisting, sideways bending and extending/flexing all at once (sorry, not entirely sure about the technical terms for these).

I would recommend watching the videos and plotting three things - the relation between the hips and the shoulders to give an idea of torso twist, the angle of the spine compared to the vertical, and the amount of flexion in the back. You don't really want to be changing all three things at once, and from a cursory watch it looks to me that this is what is happening between your delivery foot planting and the ball being released.

You seem to start off in a reasonably solid front-on action - shoulders straight, toes pointing forwards as you jump into your delivery - and then almost end up in a side-on action by the time you've released the ball- with shoulders pointing to midwicket.
 
I was suffering something very similar, it got to a point where I couldn;t sleeep at night, and a few visits to a chiropractor helped me infinitely, I recommend them highly
 
The problem with bowling is that it is repetitive and puts strain on the lower back and side. Over time this builds up and as Liz says, the potential for Spondylolysis (fracture of the lower back) is actually fairly high...especially among the youngsters training regularly. Looking after your back is important and any pain such as Butcha is feeling needs to be looked at.
 
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