Over 70% of the world’s golf population has played with back pain at some point in their life. That’s enough to set off red flags and alerts to say it probably should be worked on.
Treating Causes Instead of Symptoms
In the medical world, treatments often target injuries or symptoms. The mark gets missed by not treating the disease or the cause of those symptoms and pain. In many cases, when the lower back hurts, that’s not the actual cause of the issue.
Hip Range of Motion and Lower Back Pain
The lower back is the middle of the body. An injury above it or below it is often a causative factor for back pain. If the hips don’t have good enough range of motion, the lower back tries to do too much, especially in golf, leading to a breakdown.
Chiropractic Care For Lower Back Pain in Golfers
The Hip Rotation Test
A test can identify whether the hips are a culprit in lower back pain. Fists go between the knees, then the feet move as far away from each other as they can go comfortably. One foot often moves further than the other.
This is a hip rotation test, specifically testing internal rotation. During a right-handed golfer’s backswing, the right hip internally rotates. On the downswing, the left hip internally rotates. For a left-hander, it’s reversed.
If the trail foot is limited in this test, that signals a backswing limitation. Golfers who are limited in something the golf coach asks them to do will get it from somewhere else, often the lower back. The lower back is not designed for rotation, really only one or two degrees per segment, maybe 10 degrees total. Golfers try to push beyond that when their hips are limited, and the lower back tries to help out, becoming the root source of the issue.
Balance and Its Role in Back Pain
The second culprit can be overall balance of the body. A single-leg balance test helps assess this. First, lift one knee with eyes open and see if you can maintain balance.
The foot then goes down, comes back up, and the eyes close to see how long balance lasts. PGA and LPGA norms for this test are 15 to 20 seconds. Human norms across all age ranges are approximately 10 seconds.
If balance can’t be held in a vertical column without falling, hopping, or grabbing something, and the 10-second mark isn’t hit, improvements can be made. This is a fast-responding exercise parameter.
Balance is not just the ability of the feet to maintain upward support. Maintaining height while balancing means the core is being used as a focus point to keep the body from swaying. This translates to golf, allowing more rotary, lateral, and vertical force production. Balance is the glue that holds together strength, power, speed, and endurance.
Signs It May Be Time for a Chiropractic Evaluation
Here are some signs that you should consider a chiropractic evaluation.
Discomfort that shows up on specific movements is worth paying attention to. Leaning back, touching the toes, or leaning to one side can each reveal where tightness or pain concentrates.
Tightness on one side of the hip, especially the front leg side in a golf stance, is a common finding during evaluation. A pinch in the front of the hip during certain movements, even without real pain, points to an area worth assessing. Old injuries, such as past knee surgery, are also relevant history to bring into an evaluation.
During an adjustment, tight areas get identified through movement and positioning, followed by targeted exercises. Lack of stability coming from the core can make a hip tight, since torque from a golf swing goes into the hip, and if the core can’t transfer that energy from the hips to the club, the hip tries to create stability instead and gets tight.
An adjustment is a quick way to get joints moving, but without core exercises, a tight hip will keep getting tight again. Side planks and cable machine holds, keeping the core controlled and avoiding overarching the lower back, help address this at the source.
Overarching the lower back while leaning back creates more pressure in the lower back, and learning to keep the core controlled and the pelvis tucked reduces that pressure during a swing.
Conclusion
Lower back pain can show up at any time in golf. Often it is a symptom rather than the source or cause of the underlying issue. Understanding what’s happening above or below the site of the pain matters.
Learning about balance concepts and hip range of motion concepts can prevent a lot of trouble down the line. Simple movement preparation, addressing hip mobility, balance, and core stability, can help avoid back pain long term.