Bowling is a set up for neck pain. The weight of the ball as well as the motion needed to launch your ball can lead to neck strain. Bowlers use their brains less and their shoulders more (to hurl the ball down as quick as they can while forgetting about good technique).

You even have some bowlers thinking that if they can bench press 130kg or gain 10kg in muscle, then they'll be a great fast bowler. Overuse injuries are gradually appearing pains, aches, stiffness or injury brought on by repeated, mild physical stress to a particular area of the body.

Right arm bowlers almost exclusively develop pain to the left side of the lumbar spine at a point named the pars interarticularis. A combination of rotation coupled with hyperextension and left sided lateral flexion is known to give rise to such fractures.

The bowling action involves repetitive twisting, extension and rotation of the trunk at the same time as absorption of large ground reaction forces over a short period of time. Overuse injuries are also common. Fast bowlers often suffer overuse injuries in the lower back region.

Sports injuries are too common and getting your bowling ball checked by a certified pro-shop operator is a simple step to take to avoid such pain. An overuse injury is usually a sprain, strain or fracture to part of the body that has been used repetitively.

In recent years, however, the field of sports medicine and orthopaedic surgery has begun to develop techniques such as transplantation of one's own healthy cartilage or cells to improve healing. At present, this technique is used for small cartilage defects.

Most doctors agree that the single most important advance in sports medicine has been the development of arthroscopic surgery, or arthroscopy. Arthroscopy uses a small fiberoptic scope inserted through a small incision in the skin to see inside a joint. It is interesting to read about injury statistics for more common sports.

The NSC Injury Facts reports that in 1999, 339,775 people were treated in American emergency rooms for injuries related to baseball and softball, 372,380 were treated for football injuries, 175,303 were treated following soccer games, 22,639 were treated for bowling injuries, and 2,486 were treated for injuries following participation in horseshoe pitching.

No athlete in any sport starts out at full speed. That's what warming up is all about, gradually allowing your body to get into the athletics of your sport. Use of intimidating tactics used by fast bowlers are often unsportsmanlike and promote violence, and are shunned by many teams and players.

The Sports Science Institute at Newlands was contacted for assistance in providing visual and technical aids for our Bowling Academy players. They invited some quick bowlers to take part in a study based on bowling injuries.

It is almost inevitable that if you put a fast bowler through several consecutive competitive matches, he will pick up injuries. While no one considers bowling a contact sport, there are injuries that occur. The most common injuries are to the hand and wrist of the bowling arm.

In the 3rd century in Germany, bowling was a religious rite. There was a club carried called a kegal, used for protection. The kegel was stood up in the church cloister symbolizing a heathen and a ball was rolled at it. If the kegal was knocked over, the church member was said to have killed the heathen and was honored at the banquet.

Bowling spread from Germany to Holland and Switzerland and later to France, England and Spain. The first public establishment in England was in the 15th century and was associated with taverns.

The original bowling surfaces were clay, slate, and cinders with wood being used later. A maximum score of 200 was used toward the beginning, but was later changed to 300 to allow for more chance to improve the game. 10 pins were also adopted later as bowling grew in popularity.

The sport of bowling came to America with the Dutch colonists in 1626. German immigrants used bowling as an outdoor family activity.

In about 1840, America's first indoor bowling establishment was opened in New York. Gamblers were drawn to the sport. Bowling spread to other areas of the country, however, bowling was played with different rules in different parts of the country. Eventually bowling groups were formed called clubs. Uniform rules were adopted.

The National Bowling Association was formed in 1875 to ensure certain standards, however, it didn't survive. The American Bowling Congress was formed later and most bowlers today belong to ABC.

Automatic pin setters were introduced in 1952 and bowling continued to gain in popularity. With the computer age came the computer scoring which eliminated keeping score by hand.

League bowling is popular in modern times as well as individual bowling with friends.