Lower Back Pain in Golfers

 

The most common issue faced by golfers is lower back pain, caused by how the body is positioned over the long run. Your body will always do what you ask of it in the short term even if it leads to excess strain and pain. This makes perfect sense when you’re in survival mode but not when it comes to longevity in sport.

Generally speaking we are fortunate that improving pelvic awareness and positioning not only leads to less injury but improved performance.

While playing golf, the body generates rotational speed, mainly through movement of the feet, hips, torso and shoulders. As golf revolves around the hips, most golfers still have poor hip awareness throughout their swing.
This lack of awareness can lead to two main problems: They do not lead with their hips on the downswing and often start off at a rotational disadvantage as their pelvis is tilted forward.

Each flaw leads to back pain from two different origins: If you don’t lead with your hips with the downswing, you cannot effectively transfer power from the lower body to the upper body to the ball. That leads to the power of your swing, which is being initiated by your low back and torso. It is easy for those areas to get overworked and eventually lead to pain. If you start your swing with an excessive forward tilt of the pelvis, you will literally run out of room for movement in your hips and begin to compress your low back; causing pain for either your hips, low back or both.

To avoid complications, you can examine yourself to determine whether you experience an excessive forward pelvic tilt. Simply swing your club in a subtle manner with varying angles of pelvic tilt and observe the changes in your swing.