After Carol Gianotti-Block won her eighth LPBT title in October in the Baltimore Eastern Open at Country Club Lanes, she said that her sessions with Dr. Mark Roberts from the Foutz Chiropractic and Sports Rehab Center were beneficial to her victory.
"It definitely helped," said Gianotti-Block, who recently was married in her hometown of Morley, West Perth, Australia. "The chiropractic therapy loosened me up a lot, and I haven't felt that good in a long time. I threw the ball good all week, and I've been working really hard to stay consistent. I find the chiropractic sessions help me feel good, and I can focus on my game with no pain."
Due to chiropractic therapy with Dr. Roberts and his colleague, Dr. Robert Reier, Gianotti-Block also was able to avoid muscle injury when her ball slipped due to a poor thumb fit that threw her off balance on the approach. She switched balls and luckily was able to adjust quickly to the characteristics of the alternate ball.
"I drilled up a couple of new balls this week with new pin placements which helped, and I was really pleased," Gianotti-Block said. "But in the final match, I wasn't able to get my thumb to fit in the ball right, so I really had no choice but to make the switch. The ball rolled well, and it brought a lot of confidence back to me, so I felt good again. I had an operation on my bowling arm two years ago, and everything feels good now."
Dr. Roberts said he was seeing several knee problems the week the women competed in Baltimore because of sticking on synthetic approaches.
"The knees and hips I see in here this week are due to sticky approaches," Roberts said. "Otherwise, you don't see them often. If the body glides normally, they know where to stop so they won't foul, and it's not abrupt, so there are no injuries."
Roberts says bowling is a sport which stresses one side of the body on a regular basis; proper spinal and muscular alignment are keys to a one-sided stressed sport. But serious injuries are not incurred in bowling unless sticky approaches or foreign objects are involved. Repetitive injuries on body parts occurring slowly over an extended period of time are more characteristic of bowling. Sports involving violent contact are the ones where you will observe more serious muscle, tendon, and bone injuries and misalignments.
"If they don't stick, the gliding bowlers shouldn't have a big problem because they're not like joggers where you lift your feet and have a lot of shifting where you quadruple your body weight against the surface. You do have a momentum which goes forward where, if you hit a barrier on the floor and the tissue gives out on your knee and causes you to get a jerking motion into your follow through, you're more susceptible to injury. It's like shanking a golf club into the turf--it's going to vibrate up into your arms."
Roberts says that anterial cruciate ligament—ACL—is the injury that occurs frequently and puts many athletes out of action.
"The cruciate ligaments are the most important because they hold the leg to the thigh, and avoiding injury to them in sports is vital," Roberts said. "Bowlers would really have to hit something hard, like a piece of gum on the approach, to cause a shearing motion there. Ligaments in and around the cartilage area of the knee do get a torque and a twisting motion, and you typically will start feeling pain. What causes these symptoms are sticking on the lane, bowling shoes that don't fit properly, or dropped arches which cause a change in the biodynamics of the legs and ankles so it transfers back into the lower extremities."
Roberts encourages all of the women on tour to get a home-based chiropractor to give them regular comprehensive exams to see if they have any deficiencies which can be corrected through an orthopedic or an exercise routine which they can do themselves to help them avoid injuries.
Touring pro Darris Street is another competitor who finds that chiropractors definitely help her game.
"We try to get them every week," said Street, who bowls 50 games weekly. "It's good for relaxation or if you need any physical adjustments when we're on synthetic approaches that cause knee and ankle injuries."
Sandra Jo Shiery-Odom, who recently married PBA member Curtis Odom and went to Australia for their honeymoon and also attended Gianotti-Block's wedding, said chiropractors work wonders for soreness, especially in her knees.
"One thing I should do more often is bend my knee, which I don't do enough of at the line," Shiery-Odom said. "The chiropractor helps me stretch and makes it easier for me to bend it. It's important for tall bowlers like me (5-11) to do this; being tall is a disadvantage if you don't."
According to Debbie Krause, PBA's traveling massage therapist, the PBA Tour uses muscle therapy, which is similar in concept to the LPBT's staff of resident chiropractors at every stop, but Krause uses various mineral oils in her massage procedures.
"I work in association with the PBA National and Senior Tours [four and two years, respectively]," Krause said. "I fell into the job by luck because the national tour was in Kennewick, Washington, where I lived until I recently moved back to San Antonio, Texas. I offered to help a bowler with an injured back through massage therapy, and then every year the tour came back, and I would do the therapy. I later expanded my services for the tour through the region on different stops. Eventually, I offered massage therapy nationwide as a volunteer."
Krause finds that the national touring pros incur injuries more frequently than the seniors.
"I'm not sure why the seniors don't get injured as much, but I worked on a lot more injuries with the regular pros," Krause said. "The most frequently encountered injuries are in the shoulders and the neck. Bowlers sometimes get pulled hamstrings or stress in the lower back. I also treat headaches."
Krause says that wrist and forearm tendonitis and elbow inflammation are other recurring problems. She uses oil therapy, which includes a mixture of oils of pure herbs and roots. She mixes them with a portable carrier and applies them directly to the body, depending on the injury. Krause also mixes special formulas of oil for use in the bathtub for soaking purposes. She finds compresses are additionally effective.
Krause says if the injury is beyond her treatability, she knows several doctors around the country who are on call for the PBA players.
Krause once came to the rescue of the manager of a PBA host center in Portland, Ore., who injured his back.
"He pulled out his lower back, and he was in such severe pain that he couldn't even walk," Krause said. "Workers put out a table right in the middle of the bowling alley. It was a weekend, and we couldn't get him to a doctor, so I worked on him right there. I had my oils with me, so a lot of people saw what I did. I got the spasm to relax, and I sent him home with some oils for soaking in a hot tub. He and his wife, who watched the whole process, were very appreciative because I got the spasm to relax. It made me feel good that I could help him. They sent me a thank-you card."
Evidence from doctors, massage therapists, and bowlers indicates that behind many champions on the LPBT, PBA, and PBA Senior Tours is a qualified resident chiropractor.
(Editor's note: Last month, Gianotti-Block won the LPBT Sam's Town Invitational in Las Vegas.)