Get Your Back In Your Backswing - Lower Back Pain In Golf

It’s June. Summer is getting into full swing, and the sun is shining more often than not. All the dad’s out there are getting their grass looking pristine, getting their grills cleaned for the season and, of course, working on their golf game. With Father’s Day coming soon, here are a few facts and tips for the dad’s out there to reduce lower back pain on the golf course.

Let me paint you a picture. You are out with your friends on the golf course, sunrise tee time and it is a beautiful summer morning. You have your coffee on the course with you and you are ready to play 18 holes. You roll into your tee time right at the last second and grab your driver to open up the round with no warm-up. You swing out of your shoes, feel something tweak in your back and think to yourself “It will go away in a few holes after I warm up”. You play the whole 18 with no issues and go about your day. You wake up the next morning and can barely move.

Lower Back Pain In Golf

Lower back pain can affect roughly 80% of golfers after a round and roughly 28% play a round with back pain. Whether you feel it in your backswing, follow through, putting or bending over to pick up your ball, Kinach Chiropractic is here to help! With extensive training with Titilest Performace Institute (TPI), Dr. Andrew Kinach is TPI Level 1 certified to help understand where your back pain is coming from. 

Fortunately, the cause for your lower back pain is rarely coming from the lower back! Most often, there are other parts of the body that are not moving or are moving incorrectly, causing your lower back to overwork and eventually break down and be the source of your pain. In my professional experience working with golfers of all skill levels, it is usually improper movement of the ankles, hips, midback or shoulders that causes the lower back to overwork. The good news? With a golf-specific movement screen, we can find out exactly what is going wrong to help improve your pain and your game! 

But what can you do right now to help with your pain? Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging. Here are my 3 favourite warm-up exercises to get the body ready for golf. 

Banded deadlifts 3 sets of 10 reps

Using a resistance band, place it on the ground and step on the middle of it with your feet in your comfortable golf stance. Grab the ends with your hands and get into a deadlift position (knees slightly flexed and hinging at the hips). From this starting position, stand up by pressing your belt buckle forward, squeezing your glutes and hamstrings and keeping your upper body moving as one unit. Focus on moving with power, as this is a warm-up for your swing! 

Hip Flexor Stretch with Rotation 3 sets 3 reps 10 sec holds

Grab a 7 iron and hold one hand at the grip and the other at the head. Start by standing tall and take a step forward with one leg to get into a lunge position keeping the knee off the ground (modify to knee down if balance is an issue). Push the club away from your body while keeping your shoulders over your hips. From here, begin to turn over the front knee by keeping your arms long and your head facing forward. You should feel a deep stretch in the back hip flexor, lower back and the abs. Hold for 10 seconds and then switch sides. Keep this stretch dynamic for your warm up. 

Hip Airplanes 3 sets of 5 reps on each side

Grab any club and hold it out in front of you like a cane. Standing tall, place one foot firmly on the ground and the other foot with the toe down on the ground. Lean forward onto the club for support and begin to lift your toe off the ground and open your hip away from your standing leg. Move slowly with control and switch sides after the specified reps are completed.