Pain Gains

Beware the injured golfer? Let’s not even go there.

The old adage warns to beware the injured golfer. Sure, but wouldn’t you much prefer to play on injury-free? If so, lend Russell Hill, the proud father of Middle East amateur No.1 Josh Hill, your attention. In the first of a two-part series, the osteopath specialising in golf at Optimal Fitness identifies the most common golf injuries, why and how they happen and how to prevent frustrating time on the sidelines.

Arnold palmer once famously described golf as “…deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.” The same can be said for writing an article on golf injuries and trying to succinctly explain why they happen, what to do if you do get injured, how to prevent recurrence and importantly how best to avoid them altogether. My passion for keeping golfers on the fairways of the UAE means I’ll do my best to honour The King by summing up this complicated subject and offering simple solutions to playing on injury-free.

Perceived by outsiders as a gentle pursuit, golf is not a sport that many people associate with sports injuries. However, a study from the Centre for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio shows that in the U.S. alone, the game is responsible for more than 30,000 emergency room visits every year. Research has also found that 35.2% of all golfers will have sustained an injury within the last 12 months and 69.7% of the injured golfers miss games and practice sessions due to the injury. Many injuries resulted in a forced absence of a least a month.

The game is still in the early stages of understanding injuries, strength and conditioning and injury prevention. It has come a long way in a short time, however, and continues to grow at a rate that is a challenging and fun to keep up with.

Lets look at a commonly occurring example of a sedentary worker who does not create much opportunity to exercise during the week, plays golf once or twice at the weekend and has the occasional back pain that stops him playing golf for a month or so a year. Long periods of sitting have a tendency to reduce range of motion in the ankles, hips and upper back and reduce strength and stability in those muscles that support the posture and stabilise movement.

If we compare this to the diagram

( far right) illustrating the Mike Boyle and Gary Cook mobility and stability continuum, you should notice as we work through the body the joints alternate between those joints that are mobile and those that are stable. By appreciating this we start to understand that the vital areas of movement in our example are starting to diminish. As golf is a rotational sport, if we have lost this movement in these areas we actually start to ask the lower back to absorb these additional stresses which it is not designed to do. In addition to movement/mobility dysfunctions with our sedentary lifestyle, we have the de-conditioning of the local and global musculature. This is important as muscles not only contract to provide the power to move but also work hard to decelerate movement and absorb much of the mechanical stress before it gets to the ligaments and joints. So if you have a joint under stress due to absorbing more movement than it is designed to, and an increased stress on all the local, ligaments, tendons, joint capsule, cartilage, fascia and bone as a result of the muscle unable to effectively distribute these stresses, it is only a matter of time before the body breaks down into pain.

THE QUICKER THESE THINGS

ARE DEALT WITH, THE SHORTER THE RECOVERY WILL BE.