Lower back injuries are by far the most common injury in golf. It will plague just about every golf at some point in their golfing life.

Why is this the case?

There can be many causal factors when in comes to lower back pain, problems and injuries. It is a major problem not only to your golf game but to the world as a whole. In a recent study lower back pain is the leading cause of disability in the western world. It cost most governments billions of dollars a year.

In practice I have seen many different types of lower back injuries ranging from golf, work, lifestyle related and more. Just about every injury is a result of an accumulation of stressors over time. Because only 10% of our nervous system perceives pain we have damage and problems going on that we never even feel.

Back to golf!!

The reason lower back pain and injury it is the most common is because our body is made up of a sets of interchanging mobility and stability areas.

Surrounding the lumbar spine is the thoracic spine and the hips. As you can see from the diagram the thoracic spine and hips are both designed for mobility. You can also see that the lumbar spine is designed for stability.

What happens is that when you loose mobility in the thoracic spine and or hips you transfer that stress into the lumbar spine. You are forcing the lumbar spine to be a mobility area not a stability area.

The most common issue I see by far is the lack of mobility in the thoracic spine. I would have hardly seen a person in my practice that had proper thoracic spine function.

Most of the swing faults golfers have come from the fact their body does not function properly so they compensate for that within the swing. Golfers have watched the professionals on the TV and think they know what they need to do in the golf swing and where their body should be. The problem is that most people cannot perform that swing.

For example, players know the club should be parallel to the ground when you are at the top of your backswing. What if you cannot do this? If you have bad thoracic spine mobility it will stop you from completing a full back swing. So you will cheat to find a way to make sure you get there.

This is why the lower back is the most common injury in golf. Golfers think they know how to swing the golf club but in reality they should not be swinging that way. They are loading up the lower back incredibly.

Every golf swing puts the same stress on your body as lifting a weight you can only lift 4 times!!

The vast majority of all of our physical limitations cause us no pain or discomfort. So do not really on how you feel thinking you have no issues.

A specialised golf specific physically assessment is critical to every golfers game. You will Know what you need to work on and get specific exercise and activities you can do. As well as understand YOUR swing better.