5 Tips for Injury Free Golfing

Golf is a great way to get exercise, socialize with friends, and enjoy the outdoors. It has been shown to improve both mental and physical health, and can be played by people of all ages. However, if you love golf, you know how important it is to keep your body in tip-top shape. Golf is a sport that requires strength, flexibility, coordination, balance, persistence, and as all golfers will know, patience. It can put significant stress on your joints and muscles, especially in the lower back, shoulders, and forearms. As a result, many golfers experience pain and injuries that can affect their performance and more importantly, their overall enjoyment of the game. Whether it’s a persistent back-ache, or a twinge with every swing, it can be incredibly frustrating to spend your time in pain, or worse, having to watch from the sidelines.

Common Injuries from Golf

Low back, neck, elbow, and shoulder injuries are among the most common in golfers. These injuries typically occur from overuse or from a single excessive load resulting in a pulled muscle or a sprained joint. While professional golfers tend to sustain overuse injuries, amateur golfers are more likely to get hurt from a sudden movement such as a biomechanically poor swing. The dynamic nature of the golf swing, combined with mental and physical factors—such as the terrain, wind, and inclines—puts the body at risk of injury throughout the game. Coordinating smooth movement across multiple joints while generating sufficient power to propel the ball requires a lot of effort and can be quite taxing on the body.

Golf is a sport that requires a lot of repetition, especially for those of us who aren’t quite scratch golfers (yet). Oftentimes, golfers notice less discomfort during the front 9, but as the round progresses and fatigue sets in, small imperfections during the swing can lead to a variety of injuries. The risk of injury is also higher for those who are not physically conditioned for the demands of the sport or for those who play multiple days in a row without adequate rest.

How Can Physiotherapy Help?

Physiotherapy can identify which parts of your body are at highest risk of injury. Physiotherapists have a sound understanding of human movement and can assess your alignment, mobility, strength, and mechanics. They can help prepare the body for specific movements necessary for the sport by working on joints, muscles, and connective tissue to ensure optimal mobility.

Your physiotherapist can also help develop a sport-specific training program that consists of strengthening, motor control, and mobility work to help you swing with more precision, less effort and more power.

While we can’t guarantee that you will be shooting below par, we can design an exercise program that is tailored to your specific needs and goals, and help determine if your body is ready for action.

5 tips for injury Free Golfing

1.Practice Before You Play!

It’s important to prepare your body before you tee off, especially after a long winter break. You want to ensure that your wrists, shoulders, mid and low back, and hips are warmed up and accustomed to the movements you will be putting them through during the game. Try warming up with sport-specific exercises such as woodchoppers, hip openers, and shoulder external and internal rotations.

2. Strengthen Your Muscles and Tendons

While muscle memory can help you land on the fairway, your tendons and joints need to be adequately strengthened to handle excessive load. Research shows the best way to overcome and prevent tennis or golfers’ elbow is through sport specific training and tendon strengthening exercises.

3. Ensure You Have Appropriate Mobility in Your Thoracic Spine (mid back)

Each swing requires a wide range of motion. When we see professional golfers making their swings look so easy, you may notice just how freely their bodies flow during the swing. As many of us lead sedentary lifestyles that include a lot of sitting in front of screens for long periods, it’s easy to lose mobility in our upper extremities and torso. Whether you get moving by practicing yoga, using a foam roller, or performing exercises like thoracic extensions, thread-the-needle, or the open book stretch, improving the mobility of your upper body will enhance your swing.

4. Don’t be a Weekend Warrior

There really can be too much of a good thing. When returning to golf after time off, it’s best to start slow. Hitting 300-plus balls at the range or playing more than 18 holes over two days may be too much for your body to handle. It’s important to give your body adequate rest when we perform a high volume of repetitive movements. To avoid overloading your tendons and risking injury, pace yourself, especially if you’re just getting back into the swing of things.

5. Get a Healthcare Professional to Assess your Movement

Overall fitness and mobility are important for golf (and any other activity). Physiotherapists can design a personalized, comprehensive program that targets essential areas of fitness for golf: flexibility, strength, endurance, balance, and coordination.

What to Do if You Get Injured

If you sustain an injury while golfing, whether it’s to the hip, wrist, elbow, or back, I recommend resting the area, avoiding high-impact activities, and taking a break from golf. It’s also important to start performing gentle movements or stretches in a pain-free range, to assist the healing process and prevent the injured area from stiffening up and causing further damage when you do start moving again. Before returning to golf or starting a new exercise program after an injury, it’s essential to contact a healthcare professional to ensure you are getting proper guidance tailored to your specific injury. If you’ve experienced a recent injury from golf or would like to know more about how to prime your body for this sport’s demand, contact us to book an appointment today!

References:

Bourgain M, Rouch P, Rouillon O, Thoreux P, Sauret C. Golf Swing Biomechanics: A Systematic Review and Methodological Recommendations for Kinematics. Sports (Basel). 2022 Jun 9;10(6):91. doi: 10.3390/sports10060091. PMID: 35736831; PMCID: PMC9227529
McHardy, A., Pollard, H., & Luo, K. (2006). Golf injuries: a review of the literature. Sports Medicine, 36, 171-187
Watson, M., Coughlan, D., Clement, ND., Murray, IR., Murray, AD., & Miller, SC. (2023). Biomechanical parameters of the golf swing associated with lower back pain: A systematic review. Journal of Sports Sciences, 41(24), 2236–2250. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2024.2319443