I don't know about you guys, but I'm always shocked this time of year to see how many golfers are coming in with low back pain.

Recent stats: 53 percent of male and 45 percent of female golfers suffer low back pain; 30 percent of professional golfers play injured; 33 percent of golfers are over the age of 50; and playing golf and another sport increases chance of injury by 40 percent.

Researchers agree that a majority of injuries affecting male golfers manifest in the low back and are related to improper swing mechanics and/or the repetitive nature of the game.^2,3 The amateur or weekend golfer typically experiences injuries due to improper swing mechanics, whereas the sports professional is more likely to fall victim to overuse injuries from obsessive repetitive movement patterns. When a high velocity rotary force couples with trunk sidebending (the crunch factor), the golfer’s spine and deep paravertebral tissues take a beating. No wonder low back pain (LBP) is the most common golfer complaint! (Fig 1)

Figure 2

To hit the ball a great distance, the body must have the ability to rotate into and maintain a wide arc throughout the swing. (Fig 2) Manual therapy techniques that increase range of hip turn allow a decrease in the amount of shoulder turn, thus reducing the amount of trunk flexion and sidebending during the downswing (the most damaging moment of the swing). If golfers lack full range of hip mobility due to an adhesive capsule, powerful torsional forces will travel up the kinetic chain through lumbopelvic ligaments, joint capsules and intervertebral discs. Motion-restricted facets and damaged ligamentous tissue can neurologically inhibit deep spinal groove muscles such as rotatores, multifidus and intertransversarii leading to substitution patterns and low back instability.

Reported in the Journal of Science & Medicine in Sport (2008), University of South Australia researchers found that golfers with LBP were overly dependent on erector spinae muscles for spinal stabilization rather than allowing load transfer to be distributed among more efficient lumbopelvic stabilizers such as quadratus lumborum, transverse abdominus, multifidus, hip extensors, and thoracolumbar fascia.⁴ They theorized that the brain, sensing weakness, is forced to recruit global muscles (lumbar erectors and obliques) to compensate for the weakened deep spinal stabilizers. The question is, “What mechanism causes the deep lumbopelvic stabilizers to weaken?”

Read more at http://erikdalton.com/media/published-articles/toolbox-of-touch-the...