At Back to Back we treat more than a few golfers and their injuries. An injury common to the golfer may be one of many…. But often a golfer presents with pain in their elbow, shoulder, their back, hip or knee. Pain is all too common in golfers!

Identifying with their pain can be the easy part. Working out why they have pain is often a little more challenging.

Assessment of injuries

Our AFS (or Applied Functional Science) team will be best to do this. Their aim is to track down the ‘why behind the what’. What I mean by this is … why has that particular area of your body failed? Which area in that person’s body is not working as it should and increasing the ‘load’ elsewhere?

I saw a patient last year and remembered this all too common story. He was in his late forties with a handicap of 4! He had been suffering with right shoulder pain for the previous 5 months! He had seen a few other practitioners before finding his way to the clinic.

To me, it was crucial to see him swing as if he was hitting the ball! Watching this and adapting the way he hit the ball, it immediately became apparent that he was restricted in his left hip. As he was halfway through his backswing the movement that should have been available at his left hip was not there and he was then using his upper back and right shoulder to do much more work than it needed or was build to do.

All that was happening was his shoulder was becoming strained because of his hip! Before coming to see us, this lovely patient had had his shoulder and surrounding area rubbed for 14 treatments. Working with his left hip and left foot and integrating them into his swing gave great results in 3 treatments and he was almost pain free at 4 treatments. He still has a small way to go, but it just goes to show that rubbing symptoms (in this case the shoulder) is not always the right answer. Getting fully assessed by someone that appreciates integrated movement and treats the body as a whole is critical.Get assessed properly and get properly fixed!

-James Dodd