As the weather starts to get warmer, and the grass starts poking through the snow here in Connecticut, golf enthusiasts are eager to hit the course. Connecticut is a fantastic place for golf, with numerous beautiful public and private courses. While golf is a popular pastime, it’s essential to consider the impact of posture and spine health on your game. As a chiropractor and golfer, I have a unique perspective on how these factors can affect your swing and potentially lead to golf injuries.
Common Golf Injuries Related to Posture and Spine Health
Poor posture and spinal misalignment can contribute to various golf injuries, such as lower back pain, shoulder pain, and muscle strains. Addressing these issues can not only help prevent injuries but also improve your overall performance on the course. In this article, we’ll explore the connection between golf, posture, and your spine, and how chiropractic care can help you achieve a healthier swing.
The Impact of Spinal Health on Your Golf Swing
The golf swing boils down to generating force from your feet stuck in the ground and transferring that force up your legs, around your spine, and down your arms to the club. That rotation around the spine is integral to your ability to repeat your swing consistently and avoid common golf injuries. While you swing, the force generates up to eight times your bodyweight in compression on your lower back. Any pre-existing back issues are magnified when you swing a club. Pain or misalignment in the back can affect your swing. To correct this, we look at spinal posture and mobility as the two most important facets of your body when it comes to your golf swing.
Posture
Not only is posture one of the most important parts of your spinal health, but it sets the table for your entire golf swing. You can have all the proper swing components in place. But, if you start from a position of poor posture, everything that follows will suffer.
Poor starting posture can lead to swing plane problems, such as – reverse pivots and reverse spine angle, casting or over the top swings, and a poor follow through. All of these faults can be diagnosed on video or with a teaching pro, but the underlying posture must be corrected to fix your swing.
Achieving Proper Spinal Posture for Golf and Preventing Injuries
When looking at your address from the side, your spine should follow a straight line from your hips to your shoulders. This allows for maximum rotation on your backswing and follow through. And, it allows the abdominal muscles to generate enough force to bring power to your shot. Proper posture requires three parts – the flexibility to move your spine into position, the strength to hold it there, and the habit, or feel of the proper stance.
S-Spine Posture
An S-Spine posture results from weak postural muscles. It looks like an S shape from your neck to your hips, and it appears that the rear end is protruding. This posture gives a good turn, but consistency is a problem. This can result in a sloppy swing plane, or pain in the lower back.
Learn my favorite exercise for fixing posture.
C-Spine Posture
A C-Spine posture comes from limited spinal mobility. If the spine cannot extend properly, you end up with a rounded back prior to your swing. Rotation is limited in this posture, so many golfers will compensate in other areas of their swing to try to generate power. The curved posture puts added strain on the discs, and can result in a disc herniation.
Chiropractic manipulation is the best way to improve the mobility between the joints of the spine.
Spinal Mobility
After posture, the ability of the spine to turn smoothly is the most important factor in a strong, reproducible golf swing. If the joints cannot move properly, power generated in your legs is lost, and your distance will suffer. Mobility in the joints and flexibility in the muscles can both contribute to a loss of spinal mobility.
Joint mobility
Overall, we lead sedentary lives compared to what our bodies have evolved for. Sitting at work or in a car causes the joints of the spine to stiffen. You may not notice this stiffness at first but it changes the way you move, and can snowball as other joints compensate. Chiropractors, like Dr French, are specially trained to find these misalignments, and correct them using adjustments. Many professional golfers take advantage of chiropractors on the tour, and that kind of help is invaluable for amateurs as well.
Muscle flexibility
Tight muscles can also reduce mobility in the back. Hamstrings and hip flexors affect the pelvis, and the trapezius and forearm muscles affect the upper body. Not only do they inhibit your ability to start in the correct posture, but shortened muscles cannot generate as much force. This is because the first part of a muscular contraction operates on elastic tension (like a rubber band.)
Stretching prior to starting a round of golf is important for everyone. But, if you suffer from a specific muscle issue, specific stretching and exercise off the course is essential.
How Dr French can help your golf game
Posture and spinal mobility are primary components of a good golf swing, and they are also the focus of Dr French’s chiropractic practice in Norwalk, CT. Dr French specializes in the treatment of neck and back misalignments. Chiropractic treatment can provide the necessary support to ensure your spine and posture are in optimal condition for golf. If you’re experiencing golf-related pain or looking to improve your game, don’t hesitate to contact us or schedule an appointment online.