Exercises to avoid back pain for golf
When you think of strength training], typically the exercises that come to mind are the squat, deadlift, bench and power clean. Strength training for golf can be a completely different animal. So, strength training for such a sport needs to take on a completely different image. One that many people are not familiar with.
If you’re a student of the game, there may be a golf instructor whose philosophy matches your own. Regardless of who that may be. We can all agree that the golf swing demands a degree of rotational stability to avoid excessive wear and tear on the spine, joints and soft tissues. So, it’s surprising to me that most golfers never train their body in this plan of motion. Training with rotation can add some much-needed adaptation to build the strength needed to remain injury free.
While swinging a golf club doesn’t create a lot of stress to the body. Take into consideration that many golfers will go to the range a few times a week, play 3-5 rounds a month, with an average season lasting 5 to 6 months out of the year. Your average golfer will have a less than optimal swing, that’s creating a stress on the body it doesn’t know how to handle.
Most golfers will work 5 days a week and sit on average 8-10 hours a day. So, with no training, no warmup they’ll go hit balls or play a round of golf week after week. So now we have someone who sits most of the week performing a movement that by design can wear out the spine. Flexion and rotation are the two primary movements that cause disc herniations in the lumbar spine.
Disc Herniations will cause symptoms such as pain down the leg, difficulty with sitting to standing, pain with sitting, loss of sensation, and muscle weakness just to name a few. Out of the 27 million golfers in the U.S. 35% suffer from back pain. Don’t let you pain stop you from enjoying this upcoming season. On my Instagram page @dynamicintegrationsm you’ll find exercises to prevent the onset of pain.