Golf with lower back pain and why the rotation in your swing may be a factor
Nicola Tik
Lower back pain is the single most common MSK complaint among golfers at every level, and for recreational players it is often what eventually limits how much they can play. The good news is that most golf-related lower back pain is manageable, and continuing to play while addressing the contributing factors is possible for most people. This article looks at what tends to drive lower back pain in golfers and what helps.
The golf swing asks the lower back to do something it finds genuinely challenging. At the top of the backswing, the spine is rotated and laterally bent simultaneously. Through the downswing, the body generates rotational force rapidly and the lower back has to both contribute to that force and manage the load it creates. The follow-through then takes the spine into extension and rotation in the opposite direction.
That sequence, repeated across a full round, places sustained and significant demand on the joints, discs, and muscles of the lower back. For recreational players who may not have the trunk strength and hip mobility to support the swing efficiently, the lower back tends to absorb more of that demand than it comfortably should.
One of the most consistent findings in golf-related lower back pain is the role of restricted hip mobility. The rotation in the golf swing is ideally driven from the hips, with the lower back following. When the hips are stiff and cannot rotate freely, the lower back compensates by rotating more than it is designed to.
Over the course of a round that compensation repeats with every swing, and over a season it accumulates. Many golfers find that improving hip rotation mobility, rather than directly addressing the lower back, makes a meaningful difference to their back pain over time. This is worth bearing in mind as a contributing factor even if the hips themselves are not painful.
Without being able to observe your swing directly, specific technique advice is limited. But a few general patterns are consistently associated with lower back load in recreational golfers and are worth being aware of.
An overswing at the top of the backswing, where the club goes past parallel, tends to place the lower back in a more extreme rotated and laterally bent position than a more controlled backswing. A reverse spine angle, where the upper body leans toward the target at the top of the backswing rather than away from it, is another pattern that increases lower back load and is common in recreational players. Both are things a golf coach can identify and work on relatively quickly.
Reducing the number of holes played temporarily during a flare-up is a more sustainable approach than stopping altogether. Nine holes rather than eighteen, or playing fewer times per week for a short period, reduces the total volume of rotational load on the lower back while keeping you connected to the game.
Warming up before a round with some gentle trunk rotation and hip mobility work, rather than going straight to the first tee, helps prepare the lower back for what is ahead. Many golfers skip this entirely and go from the car to the course without any preparation, which tends to make the early holes more demanding on the back than they need to be.
Practising at the range in shorter sessions rather than hitting large buckets of balls in one go during a flare-up also reduces the repetitive load on the lower back considerably.
If you would like to try a guided exercise for the lower back and hips, VIDA has a short video you can follow at your own pace.