If you want to golf well into retirement, don’t do these 4 things.
In the golf swing, the reverse spine angle (aka the reverse pivot) is the most dangerous swing characteristic to your lower back. If you have lower back pain during your swing, it is our first priority to evaluate your swing for this characteristic and then eliminate it to prevent future pain or damage to the lower back.
A reverse spine angle can be seen during your backswing when your hips are shifted backward and your spine and upper body are angled toward the target that you’re shooting at.
Now when you swing, your spine is going through a very large swoop in the opposite direction. In most right-handed golfers, the result will be right-sided lower back pain.
To combat the poor swing characteristic, slightly tilt your spine away from the target to maintain that angle throughout your swing. With this starting position, it will allow you to swing with more rotation rather than bending side to side throughout the swing.
The second swing characteristic that leads to lower back pain is called an S-Posture. This swing posture is seen when we view your swing from the side and see your lower back arched and your tailbone sticking out. This is called hyperlordosis, meaning that your low back has too much curve to it.
It’s called an S-Posture because your spine is curved like an S. This posture clamps your spine together. Swinging through this position puts a lot of stress on the back of your spine. The structures, muscles, and joints in your spine take on the force of the swing. Over time, as you swing in that position, you will cause a lot of damage that will cause a lot of pain.
We want to correct the S-Posture by treating your body and loosening your hips up. Being aware of when you are in the position and knowing how to correct it with proper stretches will allow you to get into a better posture. Getting a swing coach to coach you through your swing can be a huge help.
The third swing characteristic that can lead to lower back pain is early extension. It’s by far the most common among amateurs and even among some pro golfers. So early extension is more looking at your hips. When you go through the swing, through the fall through, through impact. What we wanna do is imagine a line going right.
Right beside yourself here. Early extension is you coming forwards closer to the ball and off that line. That’s early extension. When we do that, that back gets compressed through impact and causes a lot of damage through that point. So it looks something more like this or here. You’re coming up and you’re going through like that, how we want to avoid that would be your butt staying on that line or going on that side, going the other direction of that line.
So you can, if you can take video, you can draw a line with it or just imagine a line as you watch a video through. Through your swing, you’re gonna come up and then through you’re gonna rotate and keep that hit back and that’s gonna help save your back. It’s gonna give you more room to swing and just prevent that early extension that can help, that can damage your lower back, cause a lot of compression through impact and reduced a lot of pain.
Hanging back is another swing characteristic that can be detrimental to your lower back, and this is what that looks like. Hanging back is a characteristic in a swing that happens on the downswing, and you can tell if you do that by setting up, getting a film or video of you face on set up at the. Draw a vertical line, an imaginary line from your lead foot straight up to the sky, and that line to your body is this gap.
There’s this gap here between these two lines and on the downswing, if that gap increases in space, you are. Deemed hanging back and that can cause a lot of issues or harm to the lower back, lower right side for a right-handed golfer. The combination of a reverse spine angle and hanging back was looked like this you set up and your reverse spine and then hanging back.
That motion really detrimental to the lower back, really harmful and also takes away a lot of power in your swing. And we want to eliminate that for reducing risk of injury, uh, longevity in playing the game of golf and increasing.