Could Tight Hips Be Causing Your Back Pain in Golf?

Your low back may hurt during golf, but the problem is more than likely your hips.

The golf swing needs a lot of rotation. Your hips and upper back are built to provide much of this movement. Your low back can rotate very little, mostly built for bending forward and backwards.  It should also stay mostly stable during the swing.

A healthy hip often has about:

• 30–40° of internal rotation
• 40–50° of external rotation

The low back has much less rotation available. The entire lumbar spine only has roughly 10° of rotation.

This means the hips should be doing most of the rotation since the have approximately 80-90 degrees of mobility compared to 10.  We know the swing is mostly dynamic rotation.

What Happens When Your Hip Is Tight?

If your hip cannot rotate well, your body still has to find a way to swing.

One common compensation is early extension. This happens when your hips move toward the golf ball during the downswing instead of staying back and rotating.

This can also cause the low back to extend and rotate more.

At the back of each spinal joint are small joints called facet joints. Extension and rotation can increase pressure through these joints. When this happens over and over during a golf swing, the facets may become irritated and contribute to low back pain.

The breakdown basically looks like this.

Limited hip rotation → Early extension → More low-back motion → More facet stress → Possible back pain

Don't Just Treat Where It Hurts

If your back hurts when you golf, your back may not be the only problem.

We need to measure hip mobility, spinal mobility, strength, and your golf movement to find out where your body is compensating.

If your hip only has 15° of internal rotation, your low back may be working harder to make up for the motion you are missing.

Don't just treat the pain. Find out why the back is being stressed in the first place.