Recently a coach told me he thought the term "energy leak" was another example of coaching double-speak.

Words that make you sound clever but mean very little, if anything at all.

Now I'm there first name on the list against that kind of nonsense, but I had to disagree about energy leaks.

Sure, it does sound clever.

But it also means something very important.

It's a short way of saying there is something in your bowling action that is stopping you bowling as fast you can.

The only way you can bowl fast is to put a lot of energy into the ball. That's just physics.

The "perfect" bowling action is simple the most efficient way to get energy from the ground and your muscles through your body into the ball.

If you have an action that stops this from happening you are, literally, leaking energy that should be going into the ball.

No mumbo-jumbo.

Of course the hard part is finding a coach with the confidence to change your action to remove the leak and boost your pace.

Most coaches and players are afraid of upsetting their "natural" action.

But I would be far more afraid of leaving those natural energy leaks in and bowling average medium pace.

For advice on how to bowl fast, enrol on Ian Pont's online coaching.