How I brought my break from 17mph to 21mph

8

8onthebreak

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Journey with me on my break stroke advancement.
After 25 yrs of playing pool, I decided to really work on my break.
I was breaking at about 17-18 with limited accuracy, but keeping the ball on the table. Clusters were common, and making a ball was a coin toss at best.

I have bought and been using the BreakRak to hone my break, and here's what I found that helped me raise my break speed, AND MY ACCURACY.

I also found that when I slowed down my break speed, and focused on accuracy ...that I was actually recording HIGHER...MUCH HIGHER BREAK SPEEDS!!!!!!!!!!

Here goes...here's the list of things I found that made the difference.

1. Accuracy...use a cue ball and mark it with a smiley face and point the smiley face up, in a certain reproduce able way, chalk the cue every break, and pick up the cue ball after each break and inspect where your hitting the cue ball...I've found that you'll pick up 1-2 mph just hitting the cueball in the center instead of off center. Hitting so much as 1 tip off center really lowered my speed of break. Maybe a 14mm tip would have merit here ???

2. Anchored my left arm down onto table, and RAISED my body as high as I can, but still leaving my left arm hunkered down for stability and accuracy.

3. Raised my body to create a longer arm on the swing.

4. Raised my bridge...when I raised my body I was miscueing due to elevated butt end, so I raised my bridge too.

5. Leaned forward to accommodate a longer rear arm and keeping stability with front arm on table.

6. Eyes dead on head ball for ultimate accuracy hit on head ball...once you've ironed out the kinks in where your tip is hitting the cueball, you can focus your eyes onto the head ball with assurance that your gonna hit dead center on cueball.

7. Wrist snap. I've been trying to understand how to snap my wrist on the break to increase speed, and despite so many people trying to explain it to me, I finally was able to figure out how to do it...WOW-makes a big difference!
PM me if you need help with this like I did, I was able to quickly explain it to a few buddies over the phone in 3 minutes and they are crushing the break now :-)

8. I learned that I'm fat, lol. No, seriously, I have noticed after practicing break shot for an hour that my hand was hitting my stomache on follow thru, I suck it in on the delivery stroke...cause I get better response than if I contort my body to move my gut out of the way. Only took a little, and my hand misses it :-)

9. I found today in practice, that I was using my non-dominant eye on the break, I was hitting the rack off center a bit here and there, when I figured it out, I lined up thru my left...dominant eye, and was hitting the cue ball and the rack dead nuts every time !!!!!

My 21 mph break shot now is consistent, deadly accurate, reproduce able, and devastates a rack. Ball almost every time. Startles anyone standing by pool table, it's not that it's so fast, but it's what it impacts the rack with thru accuracy.

I believe that a 21 mph square hit break will do as much damage as a 24mph break, hit just off center...or delivered to the head ball just off center.

Cool thing is that this 21 mph break is very controllable. It seems almost effortless...I found that its about technique, not power...and technique I found, is what actually delivers power !!!

Hope it helps someone out there-always open to addl pointers, anyone with advice on improvement, I'd love to hear more.

My goal is to get to be able to put it in there at 24mph with dead accuracy and dead clean hit on head ball-consistently. I can put 22's in there now, but not clean. Not consistent.
 
Good job. I have some general questions.

1. how do you measure your break speed ?

2. what is the "normal" breaking speed for most players in your opinion?

3. do you think this is the optimal speed for a consistent spread ?

4. do you think a faster speed would actually help ? Perhaps the balls will contact rail and recluster in the middle.

and 4 mph diff is only 5.86 feet/second. that doesn't sound like very much speed increase for a 9 ft. table to actually make that much of a diff.

thanks,
 
Great morning read, thanks for sharing!

I had some trouble also with the break. One thing that I have done is is to look at the CB last - works for me.

Chrippa
 
2andOUT said:
Good job. I have some general questions.

1. how do you measure your break speed ?

2. what is the "normal" breaking speed for most players in your opinion?

3. do you think this is the optimal speed for a consistent spread ?

4. do you think a faster speed would actually help ? Perhaps the balls will contact rail and recluster in the middle.

and 4 mph diff is only 5.86 feet/second. that doesn't sound like very much speed increase for a 9 ft. table to actually make that much of a diff.

thanks,
Click to expand...

Thanks,
I measure my break speed with an iPhone app called break speed which can be purchased from the app center for less than five bucks...and is extremely accurate from what I can tell, you gotta set it up with table size, and where your breaking from, as it uses sound to record hit to hit.

I would say that most players, A, B , whatever, are breaking in the 17-18 mph range. You'll know if they're breaking high 19's or above, it'll be loud, and balls will be moving :-) a 20 mph break really stands out. If its not delivered clean, the cue ball will take someone's head off. You'll see some 20+ mph breaks but the cueball will end up on the floor 1/2 the time, you've gotta be accurate at 20+ or she's airborne.

I would not say that I think it's the optimal speed, I think faster is better,...if it can be delivered accurate and consistent. I would welcome any higher speed and wouldn't worry about recluster...as you can play with cue ball starting location to address change in cluster.

And finally, 4 mph is an ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE.
You'll actually see a noticeable difference in .5 mph. And...IMO 1 mph is HUGE.

1 addl mph will change the entire table...and would be grounds to go out and celebrate if you added 1 mph to your break stroke...accurately.
 
Amazing isn't it!!!! About a month ago I said the same for my break! I "slowed" down my speed only to find I was hitting them harder and faster!!! I was at about18-19mph and now I'm at 21-22mph! I hit a 24.2! And I haven't been able to reproduce it! But ill tell ya, when I hit that one, I knew!!!! I think another couple of months and ill get there! As far as wrist snap, I don't know how to explain it, but its definitely 1-2 mph gain alone!!!! Great thread by the way!!!
 
Nice post. If I tried to hit the ball that hard, it would be like me playing golf and attempting to drive the ball 330 yards......I'd need lots of OFF to repel the mosquitos and ticks while looking for all my tee shots in the woods.
 
8onthebreak said:
Thanks,
You'll see some 20+ mph breaks but the cueball will end up on the floor 1/2 the time, you've gotta be accurate at 20+ or she's airborne.
Click to expand...

I can attest to this. I would break consistently 20 to 21 but the cueball would launch off the table more often than i liked until i learned to hit the 1 ball more square. With a more square hit the cb would still hop but it just goes straight up instead off going off to the side.
 
I've found by relaxing the muscles in my shoulder I really get a lot more accuracy and speed. As it says in the little packet that comes with the BreakRak, "Don't try and muscle through the break."

Could you PM me the wrist snap info? I've just been keeping a neutral wrist in order to simplify everything and work single variables at a time.
 
Good post. I've thought about investing in one of these, especially since I have my own table now and breaking is such a huge part of the game as you get to a certain level.

My break goes in streaks - I'm very consistent at 24/25 mph if I'm trying to deliver a power break, and fairly accurate, but more so on some days than others. Also find myself on some days coming across the ball slightly, still good contact because of the BHE effect but tons of left spin on the ball.

I don't always try to break that hard - some tables just break better at 17/18 or 20/21 mph - but I've tried everything to increase mine and no dice. My best was 25.98mph, but my average is 25, so not much difference. I think using the Break Rak and getting 50+ breaks an hour in vs. the time required to rack the balls each time is valuable, you may have inspired me to get one... :)

Scott
 
Great post, I've been working on incorporating some of this.

One thing that stood out, and was sort of an a-ha moment last night... and you mentioned it too... looking at the head ball.

I used to do this instinctively, then I got away from it as I started to work on my break, trying to hit as close to center cue ball as I could. The other night I decided to just focus and aim at the head ball, I'd spent so much time on bridge position and hitting center cue ball that I pretty much forgot to really aim at the head ball for weeks. When I finally did go back to eyes-on-the-one, my hits were much squarer.
 
I used to break like a fighter throwing a big right hand. I would try to push as much cue thru the stroke as I could. It worked pretty good. Then I took the 3 oz weight bolt out of my break cue and started breaking like a fighter would throw a jab. Short and quick. Now the balls explode when I hit them.
I have had to pay for a couple of broken balls :cool:
 
This is a good post ... thanks!

The breakspeed app is a great tool. I would like to throw out there that using this to SLOW down your break speed is beneficial. For instance, if playing 9 ball using the Magic Rack, I have found that a consistent 14-15 mph break is the speed needed to make the wired corner ball and leave super shape in the center of the table with the CB rolling past the sidepocket.
 
Accuracy to get Speed

That is exactly where I am. Especially on slower tables. Balls break well but making one is a toss up. Lost in APA 9 last week on 8 dry breaks. One ball sitting 6 inches in front of the corner just begging to be the dead ball run starter. Perfect for the 4 I was playing to get his 3 per rack and win. Anyway, I think adding the speed would help. It is interesting the way that concentrating on your accuracy and slowing down actually added to the speed. Someone also mentioned that the hard Samsara (and esp phenolic) tips accentuate the off center hit and the deflection that cause you to lose speed more than a Lepro off the wall. I am not a stats geek but has anyone actually tested that?
 
wontonny said:
I've found by relaxing the muscles in my shoulder I really get a lot more accuracy and speed. As it says in the little packet that comes with the BreakRak, "Don't try and muscle through the break."

Could you PM me the wrist snap info? I've just been keeping a neutral wrist in order to simplify everything and work single variables at a time.
Click to expand...

PM sent !
Good luck
 
Can you PM me the wrist snap description?

A while back I brought out the break speed app during a league match. The A/B players were consistently hitting 21-22 mph in match play, but accuracy would come and go. I bet 22 mph and a dead nuts hit on the 1 would be a great break.
 
TSW said:
Can you PM me the wrist snap description?

A while back I brought out the break speed app during a league match. The A/B players were consistently hitting 21-22 mph in match play, but accuracy would come and go. I bet 22 mph and a dead nuts hit on the 1 would be a great break.
Click to expand...

Thx, and yes, I'll send you the info...
Are you sure your break speed app was set up...you have to set it up with the correct table size, and set up exactly where the cue ball is getting shot from.

I would be surprised if A/B players would be consistently hitting 21-22...I don't think more than 1 in 5 B players would be capable of a 22mph break at all...it would be interesting to see.

I'm sending info now, hope it helps, thx for the words.
 
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