Why Do Some Golfers Have Low Back Pain?

To really understand low back pain in golf, we need to look at the key compensation patterns that occur when someone attempts to activate their muscles. As I see so often, substituting low back involvement for using your core muscles and glutes is one major problem of low back pain in many of the golfers that I see. Correcting this pattern of dysfunction should become top priority in your training program.

The problem is your glutes muscles have become weak while your hip flexors have become stiff limiting your range of motion while swing your golf club. It is an all too common problem seen in the majority of golfers today. While the majority of people sit too much during the day causing these muscle groups to become deconditioned, golfer especially with weak cores set themselves up for injuries when you try to swing a golf club with these limited and weakened muscles in the core group, you are forced to compensate using the surrounding back muscles. The glutes are large and powerful muscle groups in your body and asking your lower back muscles to do the job of the core muscles and glutes during the golf swing will most certainly create an injury to the back due to overuse.

Proper strengthening of the core muscles including your glutes will be the best restore your strength and reduce your pain.

It is extremely important that you are able to set the core muscles in the body to properly stabilize the spine and actually activate your core muscles when training, otherwise you will just revert back to your normal pattern of using your back muscles instead of your core muscles and aggravate your problem further.

It is recommended that you check with your physician before starting or adding any new exercises to your routine.