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Low back pain in Golf… Causes, Prevention and Treatment.
The body has certain sections that are meant to be very mobile, while others are intended to be strong and stable. In the golf swing, the upper back and hips are where you require the most mobility.
The low back is THE area that should be strong and stable. That doesn’t mean you should never stretch the back, rather make sure it's strong and able to withstand the stress of a golf swing. Too much aggressive, repetitive rotation in the low back can lead to injury such as a muscle strain or potential disc herniation, etc. I’m sure you’ve seen swings that just don’t quite look right or know that if you tried to move that way, you’d end up sore in bed the next day.
So why do people overdo it with their low-back? Will strengthening help? I encourage everyone to strengthen their lower back. You need to have a strong lower back to be able to withstand the forces of swinging a golf club, and let’s be honest…. there are times when you end up swinging wrong due to a tricky lie or are standing in a weird position forcing you to change your swing (I find myself off the fairways quite frequently). It happens. You can strengthen your back muscles by exercising the muscles in a safe way, not by putting your body in repeated stressful swing motions, that will just inevitably lead to injury.
Strengthening can help build resilience to the back which can help reduce the chance of injury, however if there is a constant stress caused by over rotating with the lower back due to reduced mobility somewhere else, the back will eventually give out.
“Every compensation has an expiry date!”
Improving your mobility in the areas above and below the low back will help you avoid over-stressing the low back. Those areas are the HIPs below, and the UPPER BACK above. If these aren’t moving properly, the low back takes over and tries to move in a way it’s not supposed to.
With hip mobility, Hip internal and external rotation is extremely important.
Try these tests to assess your hip mobility:
With your upper back (thoracic spine) rotation is essential
Try these tests to assess your upper back mobility
Enough with scaring you, let’s go into how we can help fix this. One part of the equation is getting the body prepped with adequate mobility in the hips and upper back.
To Increase Hip mobility here are 5 of my favorite exercises:
To Increase Upper Back mobility here are 5 of my favorite exercises:
To Increase lowback/core here are 5 of my favorite exercises:
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