Readers Count - Second Missed Cause of Back Pain With Golf

Although twisting during the golf swing is often thought to be part of spine injury, two far more injurious movements are the most ignored.

Reader Jean Christophe wrote asking about the second factor - how many times do you bend wrong, instead of bending right using the leg and back muscles. This is a largely missed cause of back pain both in every day life and in golf. I asked readers to count how many times every day they bent badly. Jean Christophe wrote:

"Dear Dr Jolie Bookspan,
"One year ago, I wrote you about golf and you gently answered. I could not play then because of the season and just wanted to share with you that we have to bend and reach the floor a lot of times: We tee the ball 18 times, and pick up the tee from the ground 18 times, we take the ball from the hole 18 times, we repair pitches on the green 10 to 15 times, we putt 36 times, we go to the bunker 4 times so we have to take the rake on the ground, we make divots that we take from the ground 18 times, and we have to take the flag from the ground 6 to 12 times; this means that we bend in a golf course around 115 times in a round of 18 holes. If you add the practice session where we put a ball on the ground 60 times or the putting practice, this means that we bend 200 times each time we go to play golf.

"Now, all of us bend the wrong way. But frankly, I tried to squat but it is not practical to tee the ball (it is not nice looking either but let's forget that) or to pick up the ball from the hole (ie under the ground).

"So I tried to stand on one leg and make the kind of stretch you spoke of ones putting the trunk and the other leg horizontal. This is more nice looking but not really the solution.

At the end, I reverted to bend badly like all the other players, unhappy because there must be a way.

"Last but not least, I made a swing more on my whole feet (instead of on the balls of my feet) and played solid. So the swing doesn't lose with good posture. But these 200 bendings need some work.
"Dear Jolie, thank you for all you help.
"Jean Christophe"

1. The reader captured the problem with this summary: "All of us bend the wrong way. But frankly, I tried to squat but it is not practical to tee the ball (it is not nice looking either but let's forget that)." To solve this problem, the first thing to do is to make good bending, using a squat (also called crouch) or lunge (drawing at right), practical to tee and pick up the ball:

• Use this to learn a simple bend with one foot in front of the other - Leg Exercise That Helps Your Back - Why The Lunge?

• Use this post to learn to half-squat, or crouch - How to get started good bending - Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending.

2. Standing on one leg, lifting the other keeping the back straight and upper body uplifted, rather than bent over is a useful way to bend for objects on the ground. It is often called the "golf pick-up."

3. Reader Jean Christophe counted 200 bad bends in a single game of golf. No wonder it hurts. He reminds that bad bending is not the answer and wants to know how to get out of the habit: "At the end, I reverted to bend badly like all the other players, unhappy because there must be a way." One good way is to realize that bending right as an isolated strange action will not build the brain and body habit. This is bending you want the day when not golfing:

• If golf alone is 200 times, how many times do you think you bend in an average day? - How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending
• When should you use good bending - How Often Should You Be Healthy?
• A reader actually tries good bending - How a Reader Stopped Recurring Pain, Got Stronger, and Said Aha!
  

4. To see the first major overlooked factor in back pain with golf, click the post - Lower Back Pain and Golf.


5. Stopping back pain from golf, other sports, and daily life is covered in the books Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery and Health & Fitness in Plain English THIRD edition How to be Healthy Happy and Fit for the Rest of Your Life.

Labels: fix pain, golf, lower back, lunge, readers inspiring story, squat

Permalink | 3 Comments| Email Post

Post your comment

Fixing Pain and Golf Easier With Real Life Movement Than Isolated Exercises

Jeff is a Silicon Valley executive, and coach of Next Stage. He found that a lifestyle of unhealthy exercise habits can accumulate, until one day of golf becomes "the Camel's Last Straw."

Jeff writes:

"There is life after back pain – even the kind where you can’t walk, sit, lie down, or sleep.

"The weekend before Thanksgiving (2007), I was out golfing, and I made a pretty bad swing at a ball that was buried in deep rough. My club got stopped by the deep grass, my back and arms kept going. I immediately felt a sharp pain in my lower back – so much in fact that I could no longer make a normal swing or even get down into a putting stance.

"I had to give it up after 6 holes and head home. I could still walk, but I couldn’t crouch and I had a hard time getting up out of a chair.

"Three days later feeling a little better, I headed out to the fitness center to do some treadmill running - NOT a good decision. After about 10 minutes, as I was cranking up the speed to a fast jog, I felt a searing pain in my lower back and down through my left thigh. From then on, I was toast.

"By the next morning I could barely walk. I had so much pain in my lower back and left leg I needed to support myself with a cane. I could barely walk or stand with the cane. There was no comfortable position for me, and I couldn’t sleep more than an hour at a time – even on pain killers and over the counter sleeping pills. Two trips to the chiropractor changed nothing.

"I did a web search, found Dr. Bookspan's web site, bought "Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery" and then even sent her an email telling what had happened. To my amazement, I got a personal answer (then another then another as I wrote with more questions and my progress). Dr. Bookspan referred me to the lower back pain part of her site, and I started doing the retraining exercises daily – and more importantly I started “living” the exercises, i.e., using them to get good body positioning and healthy movement into my day.

"In the beginning I could barely do the exercises, my pain was so extreme I couldn’t lie flat on my stomach or back without pain, not to mention doing upper or lower back extensions. (I wrote to Dr. Bookspan who found that I was overarching the lower back, when I was thinking I was straight. Wow! Consciously tucking the hip more reduced the pain significantly.)

"After a few days, things improved so I could perform the exercises better. I started to walk again – albeit with discomfort. (I wrote again and once again got the encouragement I needed, and realized the specific things I was not yet getting right. I was still overarching the lower back and that was preventing healthful motion.)

"Today, it is 5 weeks since worst of the pain. Thanks so much for your support. I am orders of magnitude better! I am walking without a limp – pretty much normal gait. I played 9 holes of golf this morning, walking a very hilly course, carrying my clubs. Yesterday I was on the treadmill doing some light jogging. All signs of discomfort are gone and I am gradually working myself back into shape. I am not taking any medications of any kind, and I am doing just great.

"I am working hard to incorporate the things I learned from Dr. Bookspan about movement, posture, and exercise into my daily life. It makes total sense to me that the positions you are in for most of the day have far more impact than 10 minutes of exercise. I feel like I have been to hell and back, and I definitely don’t want to make another visit."

Links used:

• Fix Your Own Pain without Drugs or Surgery
• Also recommended - Health & Fitness THIRD edition, How to be Healthy Happy and Fit for the Rest of your Life
• Understanding the hip tuck to neutral spine - Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine
• Fast Fitness - First Morning Stretch
• Lower Back Pain and Golf
• Web site Back Pain Article.

Labels: fix pain, golf, injury, lordosis, lower back, readers inspiring story, sciatica

Permalink | 6 Comments| Email Post

Post your comment

Lower Back Pain and Golf

Lower back pain is a common problem for golf players. Pain is sometimes attributed to twisting the torso during the swing. The "twisting theory" seemed reasonable, since that is when many people feel the pain. However, the main problem is not twisting. Beside the bad forward bending that is common for picking up golf shots and equipment, a major overlooked source of lower back pain is overarching the spine during the swing.

If you increase the inward curve in the lower back, you increase normal lordosis to hyperlordosis. When you do this during the swing while letting your upper body weight press down on the area, it compresses the facet joints and surrounding soft tissue. It is the same pain that occurs from overarching during walking and running.

A golf pro attended my last workshop on fixing back, neck, and hip pain. I was able to check with her to make sure that what I found to stop lower back pain with golf would not interfere with a good swing.

She stated:

"I do not think arching is essential, but I can imagine the older golfers and what their swings might look like...there are some ugly ones that would arch WAY too much and that is the source of many problems on the score card, as well as the back!"

In the following photo examples, look for too much inward curve in the lower back. Too much curve is not a normal lordosis, it is overarching, called hyperlordosis. Overarching is the reason for much unidentified pain during standing activities.


In the next two drawings, the lower spine is overarched (hyperlordotic) on the left and neutral on the right. Neutral spine keeps a small inward curve, but not a large one:


In these photos, see how the lower back is overarched:


These photos show the lower spine from the back:



In these three photos, see how the lower back is held in neutral spine:

Preventing overarching and holding neutral spine does not mean that you do not get a full or strong swing. It is not the case that the only way to get full range of motion is by pivoting from the lower spine joints. By holding neutral spine you will shift the effort of the swing onto your abdominal muscles, giving you a more powerful swing.

Feel The Healthy Change For Yourself:

• To feel how to change from overarched to neutral spine, see Innovation in Abdominal Muscles.
• To understand how bad forward bending (opposite problem from hyperlordosis) contributes to back pain click The Cause of Disc and Back Pain.

Labels: abdominal muscles, facet joints, fix pain, golf, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine

Permalink | 0 Comments| Email Post

Post your comment