most common golf injuries Archives - The Golf Chiropractor

While golf is viewed as a “leisurely” sport, it’s still a sport. As such, players are at risk of injury. While back injuries are the most common golf injury, golf hip injuries are listed among the top 5 sites for pain in golfers. According to one study, one in five male golf professionals report experiencing hip pain. It’s not surprising that hip pain increases with age.¹

Hip pain is one of the top 5 most common sites for pain in golfers — Photo by Courtney Cook

Hip pain from golf can be traced to the swing itself. Every joint in the body is pushed through its maximum range if motion when you swing the club. The hips are no exception. Some players try to generate additional power to their drive by shifting the hips backward and forward during the swing. This not only results in inconsistencies in their game, it also contributes to back pain as well as hip pain. However, even golfers executing perfect swing mechanics can still experience hip pain due to the extensive twisting and resulting pressure placed on the low back and hips.

Treatment for Golf Hip Injuries

Perhaps the most difficult treatment option for golf hip injuries is rest. If you experience hip pain during your golf swing, then the first step in treatment is to stop playing to allow your body to heal. Golf injuries are repetitive stress injuries. Consult with a chiropractor who treats gold injuries for recommendations on how long you should stay off the course.

You can help speed the healing of your golf hip injury by following the RICE method for the first 48-72 hours after you experience hip pain. RICE stands for:

Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation

REST:

Pain is your body’s way of letting you know something is wrong. Trying to play through your hip pain will only increase how long it takes you to recover. So the first time your hip hurts during your golf swing, you should stop playing and rest your hip as much as possible. If you’ve been properly fitted for crutches and still have them available, use them. Golf hip injuries are repetitive stress injuries. Unlike an acute injury like a slip and fall, repetitive stress injuries means the damage has been happening over time. By the time your hip hurts, the damage has already been done.

ICE:

While resting, you can accelerate healing by applying ice to your hip. The cold helps to reduce pain and swelling. Place an ice pack on your hip for 10-20 minutes every three – four hours during the first 24 to 48 hours after you first felt pain in your hip. Be sure to cover the ice pack with a towel so you won’t damage your skin.

COMPRESSION:

In addition to resting and applying cold to the injured areas, you also need to compress the area. This can be done by using an elastic bandage and wrapping it around your hips. Wrapping your hips snugly also helps to reduce swelling. Be careful not to wrap the area to tightly. If you wrap your hips too tightly, you’ll actually increase swelling and interrupt blood flow. Monitor the skin on your legs carefully. If the skin below the wrap turns blue or feels cold, numb, or tingly, the bandage is too tight. You need to loosen it. If loosening the bandage doesn’t make the symptoms go away immediately, seek immediate emergency medical attention.¹

ELEVATION:

Elevation simply means raising your hip at or above the level of your heart. This will help reduce your hip pain. If you needed an excuse to purchase an adjustable bed, your golf hip injury is a good reason. The CDC recommends keeping the injured area raised whenever possible, even when you’re not icing it.

After the first 48-72 hours of practicing the RICE method, you can begin applying heat to the injured area during your rest period.

Chiropractic Treatment of Hip Pain

The fastest way back onto the course is to treat your hip pain with the RICE method while working with a knowledgeable chiropractor. Your chiropractor will create a treatment plan for your care. The plan your chiropractor creates will be unique to you. The goal of your chiropractic treatment plan is to:

relax muscle spasms,
reduce inflammation,
strengthen weakened muscles,
and improve joint mobility

The chiropractic treatment plan may include chiropractic spinal adjustments, massage therapy, and strengthening exercise therapy.

Chiropractic Spinal Adjustments

Spinal adjustments may reduce potential spinal misalignment that are contributing to your hip pain.

Ultra Sound Therapy

Ultrasound therapy uses sound waves to treat musculoskeletal problems like inflammation from injuries.

Myofascial Therapy

Myofascial therapy is a hands-on technique that works to relax, lengthen and realign your fascia. Fascia is the connective tissue that attaches, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs.

Massage Therapy

Massage can help increase hip mobility and movement. It can also relieve stress on the hip joint as well as to help correct pelvic alignment.

Strengthening Exercise Therapy

Exercise therapy (includes stretching) helps to increase the range of motion of your hips and strengthen your muscles. This can help speed healing and may get you back on the golf course sooner .

Underlying Health Factors

While the golf swing demands a lot from your low back, hips and knees, if you have underlying health factors, you’re more likely to experience hip pain from playing golf.

Arthritis

Arthritis describes swelling and tenderness in your joints, including your hip joint. It is more common among older adults. Symptoms of arthritis include pain, stiffness, swelling and decreased range of motion. Arthritis eventually leads to the breakdown of the cartilage that cushions your hip bones.

Hip arthritis can have a significant impact on your golf game. The swelling and stiffness that comes with arthritis make it difficult to swing the club efficiently. The modern golf swing demands that the hips rotate freely. The restriction arthritis has on hip movement makes follow through difficult. Not only will you lose power, but you’ll put additional stress on muscles in your low back to compensate.

Hip arthritis also makes it hard squat to tee up the ball or assess the greens when you’re putting. Hip arthritis can make walking up mild inclines difficult as well.

A single participant study illustrates that chiropractic care can be beneficial for treating hip arthritis and improving recreational golf performance. The positive outcomes included increased ranges of motion, decreased pain, as well as improvements in golf driving distance and endurance.²

Bursitis

When the small, fluid-filled sacs (bursae) that cushion the bones, tendons and muscles near your joints become inflamed, it’s called bursitis. Bursitis symptoms are similar to those of arthritis. The difference is that arthritis is a chronic condition. It causes irreparable bone, cartilage and joint damage. On the other hand, bursitis is a temporary swelling of the bursae. While arthritis can cause bursitis, bursitis won’t cause arthritis.

Other

Other underlying health conditions that can cause hip pain include pinched nerves and different types of cancer. You should consult a physician or a chiropractor if you have hip pain that lasts more than two weeks to rule out more serious causes of hip pain.

Treating Golf Hip Injuries

Chiropractic treatment of hip pain can help ease your pain and get you back to playing golf. In addition to seeking chiropractic treatment, be sure to have a golf pro evaluate your stance and swing. A slight change can make a huge difference in your performance while preventing further injuries.

If you’re experiencing pain from a suspected golf hip injury, do not ignore it. Pain is your body’s way of letting you know that something is wrong. Ignoring pain means delaying treatment. Hip pain could be a symptom of cancer or other serious conditions that require immediate treatment. Even if your hip pain is simply a matter of playing too many rounds of golf, playing through the pain could worsen your injury. It can also make treatment more difficult.

The most common golf injuries result in low back pain. This is because soft tissue damage in the low back is common among golfers. Soft tissue damage is a strain or sprain of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons and can surprisingly painful and debilitating. Fortunately, this is a condition that can be treated effectively with chiropractic care.

When you drive the golf ball off the tee you’re putting a lot of stress on the muscles and other soft tissues in the lower back. That’s why there’s a relatively high rate of injury in golf, even among touring professionals. When these soft tissues are strained or injured, it can be very painful. While a strained back muscle may seem like a minor injury, the resulting pain and muscle spasms can be surprisingly severe, keeping the most avid golf fanatics out of the game for weeks at a time.

Common Golf Injuries Result in Low Back Pain

Let’s start our discussion of low back pain with a brief lesson in anatomy. Your lumbar spine i.e lower spine, is an intricate network of bones, discs, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Low back pain is generally caused by damage (strains or sprains) to the soft tissues, i.e. the muscles, tendons and ligaments, that support the lower spine.

Now that we have the basics of anatomy down, it’s time to look at the reason why common golf injuries lead to back pain.

Every golfer’s goal is to create a swing paths that produces the most power. Your golf instructor has no doubt informed you that you can increase ball velocity by maximizing separation between your upper torso and pelvis at the top of and initiation of your down swing. Well, you should listen to your golf pro, because research proves this is true.¹ Master this technique and you’ll be crushing the ball off the tee. However, by doing so you’re putting severe pressure on the muscles and other soft tissues in your lower back. Some estimates indicate that professional golfers experience about 7500 N of compressive force on the spine during the downswing. This is about eight times the weight of the average human. This force is comparable to the compressive forces calculated for football linemen while striking a blocking sled.^2,3

Common Golf Injuries of the Back Include:

Muscle Strain or Ligament Sprain

Many people will call a muscle strain a“pulled muscle,” even though the cause of pain may be an injury to a ligament. Low back muscle strain is often a repetitive stress injury. Symptoms of muscle strain can range from soreness to a sharp, debilitating pain. If the pain radiates into the buttocks or down the leg, this is a symptom of something far more serious and needs to be addressed with your chiropractor.

When it comes to muscle strains, the good news is that stopping activities that cause the pain will often lead to the pain resolving itself. The bad news is, it may take a month or more to heal without treatment. In addition to taking you off the course for weeks, you’ll still need treatment to address the lingering muscle stiffness, fascial restrictions, joint fixations or movement alterations as a result of the initial injury.

Disc Injury

A disc injury is an example of a mechanical golf back injury. A series of bones separated by rubbery discs makes up your spine. These discs act as cushions between each of the bones that make up the spine. When a disc the soft center of a rubbery disc is pushing through a crack in the tougher exterior casing, it is said to be “herniated” or bulging. If you ignore the pain and continue putting stress on the disc, the soft center may begin to ooze out in what’s often called a “ruptured disc.” These discs are also susceptible to degenerative changes over time.

Symptoms of a disc injury include ⁴:

radiating pain into the buttocks and leg
pain and numbness, most commonly on one side of the body
pain that extends to your arms or legs
pain that worsens at night or with certain movements
pain that worsens after standing or sitting
pain when walking short distances
unexplained muscle weakness
tingling, aching, or burning sensations in the affected area

Degenerative Arthritis

Just like every other joint in your body, spinal joints can become arthritic, causing bone spurs and osteophytes. These changes are very common in people over the age of 55. Most arthritic problems in the spine create sharp pain with certain movements – like swinging a golf club. The resulting inflammation from arthritic changes in your spine can cause chronic, dull pain. . Your chiropractor can also help if the pain is related to abnormal alignment and movement patterns in the spine.

Treating Low Back Pain for Golfers

Treatment of low back pain in golfers should take a two pronged approach.

First, you should address your current physical symptom of low back pain. A visit to a chiropractor who understands the mechanics of the golf swing is critically important.

Chiropractic treatment often includes spinal manipulation. It also includes other treatments such as:

therapeutic exercise,
therapeutic ultrasound,
soft tissue mobilization,
spinal traction,
cold laser therapy,
transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS).

Your chiropractor will utilize several therapies to address the injury as well as the lingering muscle stiffness, fascial restrictions, joint fixations or movement alterations.

Addressing Swing Mechanics

To prevent future injury, you should address flaws in your swing that may have caused the initial injury. Your golf pro can help you to create an optimal movement pattern in the areas directly above and below the lumbar spine – the hips and thoracic spine. This will be nearly impossible to do if your back is hurting. That’s why it’s important to first treat the injury and then address the cause of the injury.