By Shaun Rodgers, Physiotherapist
Should I see a physio for my low back pain FROM GOLF?
YES! In this blog we explain why.
With over 55 million people a year playing golf, it is one of the most popular sports in the world. In playing the sport we love, unfortunately we can pick up injuries.
Low back pain is a common injury in the golfer with up 35% of amateurs and 55% of professionals reporting low back pain as an injury.
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Why do you get a sore back from golf?
There are many proposed mechanisms on why low back pain can develop in the golfer and we outline how physio can help recover and mitigate against future injury.
Firstly, it is important to understand the structure of our lower back.
Our lower back has many structures:
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A bony vertebral column in the centre with discs in between each vertebra. The vertebral column protects your spinal cord and helps allow movement in different directions
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Nerves coming out between these vertebra through little openings called intervertebral foramina. These nerves provide sensation and function to your pelvis and lower limbs.
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Ligaments, tendons and muscles surrounding your back helping support and move you.
Unfortunately, sometimes these structures can get injured and this can hamper our ability to perform on the golf course.
This is where we come in. We are experts at identifying your injury, explaining why it may have happened and most importantly, getting you back to playing your best golf without pain.
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Risk Factors For Low Back In Golf, and what can physio do about it?
There are many proposed risk factors and we discuss them below.
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Reduced Muscular Endurance
Reduced endurance has been associated with low back pain. Endurance is the muscle’s ability to keep producing high levels of force over extended periods of time - like a round of golf!
If they do not have sufficient endurance, they can start to get fatigued and not give you as much support as you need, and can increase the risk of injury.
Physiotherapy can help identify where you may lack endurance, measure it with our technology accurately and design a sport specific plan to get these measurements to where they need to be, all the while, helping you recover from pain.
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Reduced Hip Range of Motion
It has been proposed that reduced hip range of motion, specifically internal rotation of your lead hip (left hip in right handed golfer, right hip in left handed golfer) can increase the risk of developing low back pain.
Let’s take the right handed golfer, when you swing, you rely on your left hip to give you support while it moves into internal rotation (unless you’re Scottie Scheffler, in which case, you can move to point 3!).
If it does not have the capacity to give you support while it moves into more internal rotation, this can increase the load on your low back.
Physiotherapy can help by providing manual therapies and exercise strategies to help you access and improve more range of motion while allowing your hip to still give you plenty of support during your golf swing.
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Improper Pelvic Sequencing
The modern golf swing puts more emphasis on high levels of force production through the increased degree of pelvic and shoulder separation.
Being able to keep oneself stable while producing high levels of rotational force through the trunk can be challenging. Sometimes, pain can arise from an inability to control the amount of force being produced.
Physiotherapy can help by ensuring you have enough strength, control and flexibility to allow you to swing well and excel on the course.
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How demanding is the golf swing?
Back pain in the golfer is often associated with the mechanical demands of the sport.
The golf swing is a high velocity, repetitive, asymmetrical motion associated with high amounts of mechanical load on the spine (upwards of 8x body weight in some instances!)
Now, this is not a bad thing, your spine is designed to cope with lots of stress. Sometimes, it does not cope as well as it could and structures can become painful. We help build these structures’ capacities back up so they can deal with the stress.
How will I know my back is ready to cope with the demands of golf?
In addition to expert clinicians, we have high tech kit that allows us to test your readiness to return to play very specifically.
Our VALD and dynamometry kit allows us to see if you are producing the amount of forces necessary to deal with the demand of golf.
What would happen during my physio consult?
In your first appointment, your physiotherapist will complete a thorough assessment and explain what is causing your pain and provide you with a step by step plan to get you back to your best.
They may also adopt some manual therapy approaches to help your pain initially so that you can get back to doing more complex tasks in a more efficient way.
We get lots of people with low back pain back to their best.
If you are someone suffering with low back pain, book a consult with us so we can help you too!
If necessary, we can also refer you to the relevant medical professional if there is something more serious causing your pain or if you need further investigations.
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LEARN How OUR MELBOURNE SPORTS PHYSIO TEAM can help you?
At Melbourne Sports Physiotherapy our goal is to get you moving pain free as soon as possible.
But, we also want you to actually move better and live a healthier, more active and fulfilling life!
If your sports, fitness training or work has been wearing your body down, book in with one of our expert massage therapists so we can help you reduce your pain or stiffness.
If you are showing some signs of this condition or simply want help prevent this from happening in the future then book in with one of our highly experienced Remedial Massage Therapists today!
You can make an appointment by calling or booking online.