Bad swing mechanics and instruction are bad for your back.

According to myTPI.com, roughly 30% of golfers deal with back pain after every round. Blame is arbitrarily assigned to golf. For other sports the blame makes sense. Football is a contact sport and carries a near statistical certainty of being injured if you play enough. Throwing a baseball isn’t entirely natural to the arm. Rothman Orthopedics says the most common injuries in baseball are to the throwing arm and shoulder. But is golf naturally risky to the back?

The problem isn’t golf itself, it’s the way golfers take their posture and swing.

With every client I conduct an initial evaluation concerning experience, performance, goals, injuries, and so on. I always note the positions and movements in their swings before I begin instruction. Additionally, I take video of these swings from multiple angles. With a sample size of 300 players, I found no more than two dozen had their spine set in a healthy position. Less than a handful had a sequence of movements in their swing which accommodated their backs. 

All this to say, it’s a rare sight to see anyone doing it right.

Let's explore what is correct and why.

A neutral spine is a position in which the spine is not engaged in any flexion, extension, lateral flexion or rotation. Visibly a person will appear with a relatively straight back but if we could x-ray them in that moment from their side we would see a subtle “S” curvature in the spine (see image). We would see healthy spacing between the vertebrae indicating healthy discs. Seeing that no portion of a disc is being more compressed than another we could conclude a neutral and optimal position.

A neutral position is optimal for three reasons.

1. It maximizes the potential for creating force. 

In the context of golf, it allows us to move faster. Dr. Kelly Starrett supports this idea stating “when you organize your spine in a neutral position, with each spinal segment in perfect alignment, force can travel efficiently and uninterrupted through the kinetic chain.” When the spine is in disarray, it affects the other joints involved in the movement. Starrett describes the spine as a chassis. If a chassis is faulty, then optimal performance in our arms, hips, and legs becomes nearly impossible.

Weightlifting requires more exertion of force than any other athletic activity. People are genuinely moving as much weight as possible and need optimal performance. If you watch weightlifters do squats, clean and jerks, and deadlifts you’ll notice they all do these with a neutral spine. The maximization of force and injury prevention is why.

2. It maximizes range of motion (ROM).

Rotation of the upper body is limited when in flexion or extension. The three top portions of the spine (cervical, thoracic, and lumbar) each make a contribution to the rotation of the upper body. However, when one of those are in extension or flexion, the ability to add rotation is limited. The spine can do combined movements, often referred to as “coupling.” The most frequent occurrence of combined movement in the spine is lateral flexion (tilting to the right or left) and rotation — NOT flexion/extension and rotation. 

Doctors Levangie and Norkin note the limited rotational capacity of the spine in a non-neutral state. “The amount of motion available in extension, in addition to being limited by the size of the discs, is limited by bony contact of the spinous processes and passive tension in the zygapophyseal joint capsules, anterior fibers of the annulus fibrous, anterior trunk muscles, and the anterior longitudinal ligament.” Basically, when the back is in extension, the spinal bones run into each other and the discs and tissues are too stretched out to do anything else. 

Levangie and Norkin don’t stop there. In addition to better movement, they both find a reduction in risk of injury when the spine is neutral. “…the risk of rupture of the disc fibers is increased when torsion, heavy axial compression, and forward bending are combined.” Torsion means rotation and axial compression is force acting downward/vertically on the body (think gravity). Do these movements with flexion and the chances of a disk rupture increase. At the very least, it will accelerate wear-and-tear.

Starrett reminds athletes of the severity of a spinal injury. “If you injure the meniscus in your knee, you can still soldier on — it might not be all that pleasurable, but you can go on with your life. If you herniate a disk or injure a facet joint, on the other hand, it’s game over: Your whole mechanical system shuts down.” Not only does the injury dramatically limit everyday function but the recovery process is long and difficult. It takes time to heal and to recapture lost skill.

The negatives are clear, but what’s the difference in ROM when the spine is neutral? Starrett has us covered and cites a 30-40% increase in ROM when the spine is neutral! Not only is the ROM optimal, but the rotation/torsion could hardly be considered harmful. In fact, study of the disks in the spine reveal they were uniquely designed for this. But when they are compressed or stretched via flexion or extension, they are no longer oriented to provide that rotation.

3. It maximizes position transition

Position transition is a phrase I coined for the concept of the body transitioning from one position to another in an efficient manner. While golf is not an athletic sport, the swing is still a dynamic and complex function. A function that contains a lot of changes in body positions and sequence of movements. Encompassing all these positions and movements of the swing is the small frame of time in which it occurs. Swings generally take less than two seconds. In addition to making the swing fast and the body moveable, we ought ensure it can change positions effectively. 

Starrett stresses this: “Consider an athlete playing a rotational sport like baseball or golf. If that player starts out in an over-extended or flexed position, every position and movement that follows is compromised.” 

Following that compromise, the performance becomes much more difficult to produce and maintain. The reason is, if a movement or position in the swing is incorrect, then a compensatory or corrective move must be made to make up for it. That adds one more variable to the swing, that’s one more thing a golfer has to get right. That makes the rate of success and repeatability drop. The more you have to do, the more opportunities there are for things to go wrong. Think of a long algebra problem. You have all these parenthesis, you have x, multiplication, division…you get the idea. Now it may not be a hard problem, but what if I set a time limit? The shear amount of tedious steps you have to do to solve the problem could trip up anyone. All it takes is one. You could do everything right, but if you add instead of multiply in just one spot, the answer becomes incorrect.  

Fortunately, in golf, we don’t need the perfect shot every time. We do need to have skill and consistency though. A neutral spine gives us a foundation to achieve that while maintaining good health. However, a neutral spine doesn’t necessarily make a good swing. The neutral spine is half the battle, the movement of the upper body is the other half. The backswing is composed of upper body movement, rotation being the most dominant. The downswing is primarily composed of lower body movement. Professionals at impact drastically move their lower body and maintain their neutral spine. Amateurs do not (see images below).

When Starrett talks about force production, he’s not referring to the force output by the back. He’s referring to the rest of the body. Again, think back to the weightlifters. Squats, deadlifts, clean and jerks. Most of the power and movement is generated in the legs. The spine is the chassis, not the engine. Yet amateurs routinely use it as the engine. A backswing is at or less than half the speed of the downswing. The disks can handle rotation at that speed, it’s not fast. But using the spine as the creator of force on the downswing does not only create poor performance but risks injury. 

I want to highlight one example in particular, client #3 (see above). This client struggled with misses to the left. He was also dealing with aggravation in his left shoulder, specifically under his scapula. It was ‘pinching.’ In the follow through we see his lead arm moving away from the body and the elbow is in flexion. This indicates he is ‘pulling’ with his arm and shoulder to complete the swing. On the right side you see the corrected version. Not only has the pulling ceased in the arm and shoulder, but the use of his lower body as increased. He had a good posture to begin with, but the output of force with back inflamed the tissues. 

The reason I use this client as an example is the fact that he is a chiropractor, and a very good one! He knows the criteria for a good posture. But when it comes to movement, even he was unaware! This is why before working with me, he slipped a disk! He was not golfing when it happened, but improper swing mechanics did contribute to the injury.

TPI and some teachers are aware of the good posture; however, it all gets lost when it comes to the biomechanics in the downswing. It’s not just the positions but the movement. Too many golfers swing with their backs and we need to be specific about the right way. Doing it the right way instantly eliminates the wrong ways. Unfortunately, many teaching pros will disregard this. I’ve included a snap shot of a popular and prominent teacher and his student. Look at that spine position! 

I don’t bring this up because I have beef with pros. I’m not mad at anybody, it doesn’t solve anything. I’m not attacking them personally either, I’m critiquing their method. It seems like the teacher in the picture is well liked by his students and they have success. I genuinely want them to do well together!  This is a pursuit of truth for the sake of improved and healthier golf, not superior opinion. When medical professionals like Levangie, Norkin, and Starrett are revealing research and conclusions, without an agenda, that contradicts what so many golf teachers are doing, then the golf industry needs to reconcile what they teach with these findings for the sake of the students. I wasn’t exempt from this! I rebuilt my entire understanding of the golf swing through the lens of these experts. Much of what I used to believe was wrong!

I’m passionate about this because I was injured. I lost two years of my collegiate career to an injury. My following years were tarnished by the effects of lost time. I loved my coaches but they weren’t certain what to do with me. Life is better with golf and golf is better when you are fully functional. I’ve lost some of my best years of competition. I don’t regret it because it has informed me as coach. I don’t want others to experience what I did though. I want them to reach their goals, enjoy the game, and never miss out. I want them to have it all. A bad back will lose it all. It’s not the game, it’s the faulty swing and instruction.