Golfhacker11

Golfhacker originally published this article in its sample edition. As Golfhacker
Magazine has grown in popularity we thought it would be best to republish it.
Mark Curtis is a Sport Physiotherapist with over 12 years experience who kindly
wrote this piece to help fellow golfers prevent getting lower back pain. It is
essential reading.
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Whether a fellow hacker or a seasoned professional, you have more than likely
picked up one or two injuries on the golf course in your time. Lower back pain is
the number one injury sustained by golfers, accounting for up to 34.5% of all
injuries.
Several factors have been linked to causing lower back pain whilst playing golf,
including altered posture and swing faults, inadequate warm up, and poor body
conditioning (areas of weakness or stiffness). But how can you identify these
problems and reduce the risk of injury to your lower back?
Making sure your posture is correct when
addressing the ball is extremely important. The two
most common posture ‘faults’ that golfers adopt are
an excessive C- Posture and S Posture.
(C-Posture above, S-Posture right)
C-Posture is used to describe a posture that occurs
when your slump forward at the address and you
have a definitive roundness to your mid back. This
limits the amount of rotation available throughout
the trunk. The golfer, therefore, has to compensate
by excessive movement at the shoulders and legs to
generate force.
S-Posture is a postural characteristic that can be
caused by the player creating too much arch in the
lower back by sticking their tail bone out and lifting
their chest up. This excessive curvature in the lower
back is caused by tight lower back and hip flex or
muscles and weak abdominal muscles.