As a Titleist Certified Golf Fitness Professional, some of the most common injuries I see in my practice are to a golfer’s lower back, shoulder and arms. They are usually sprains or strains, but they can also include tears to muscles, ligaments or cartilage. There can even be serious injuries with long-term consequences such as arthritis and herniated spinal discs.
These injuries happen mainly for reasons like poor body mechanics, bad swing mechanics or poorly fitted equipment, but there’s also a cause that most people would never consider dangerous: excessive practicing.
Amateur golfers practice by going to the hitting range. At the range, a golfer must decide which size bucket of golf balls to choose: small, medium, large or in some cases even JUMBO.
After a typically cursory warm up of bending over two or three times and then swinging the club a couple of times, the amateur golfer will start hitting balls. That is a total of between 60 to 160 balls. If you count the practice swings between balls, it’s like playing three rounds of golf in under an hour!
Unless your body is properly conditioned for that type of workout, injuries are very likely to happen.
Here’s a little trick that can help minimize golf-related injuries: buy a small bucket even if the jumbo one looks like a better deal. Balance this restraint with a sufficient warm up with gentle swings of your shorter irons before going for distance with the driver. And perhaps most importantly, work on your body when you are not working on your game.
Most golf injuries happen because the player’s body simply can’t do what is necessary to swing the club properly. Spend some time in the gym doing the golf related exercises your body needs to get into proper shape to avoid injuries.
And if you don’t know what to do, call us. With PGA Golf Pro Jon Manos and two on-staff Titleist Performance Institute Certified Golf Fitness Instructors, Nick Manoy and Dr. David Schwartz, The Back Care Center of Dumont, NJ can help you with a physical screening, golf swing biomechanics and video golf swing analysis, plus drills and exercises to improve your body and your game.
