Journal · 2026-08-30 · Dallas, TX
Golf and the one-sided body: what eighteen holes actually asks of your back
Golfers do not usually book a massage because of golf. They book because of a low back that has been grumbling for a season, or a lead-side shoulder that has stopped rotating properly, and the connection only comes up in conversation on the table.
It is a real connection. A full swing is a fast, forceful rotation performed in the same direction, seventy to ninety times a round, plus a range session, for years.
Where the load lands
The lead side takes most of it. For a right-handed player that is the left hip, the left side of the low back, and the left shoulder, and the pattern is usually visible before anyone says a word about their handicap.
The thoracic spine is the part that should be doing the rotating, and in most adults it is the part that rotates least — because it has spent forty hours a week in a chair. When the mid-back will not turn, the lumbar spine turns instead. The lumbar spine is not built to rotate much, and that is the mechanism behind a large share of golfers’ low back pain.
The hips are the other half of it. Restricted rotation in the lead hip forces the same compensation upward.
Then there is the trail side, the forearms, and the grip, which explains why golfers get the same elbow and forearm complaints as office workers, from an entirely different route.
Before a round versus after one
They are different sessions and it is worth booking the right one.
Before is short, brisk and mobility-focused: hips, mid-back rotation, shoulders, forearms. Nothing deep and nothing sedating. Deep work directly before playing leaves the muscles slower to respond, which is not what you want on the first tee.
After is the proper session. Slow work through the lead-side low back and hip, the glutes, the thoracic spine, the shoulder and the forearms, taking the tension out before it sets in overnight.
What we are trying to restore
Rotation where it belongs. The aim of the work is a mid-back and hips that turn freely so the low back stops volunteering for a job it is not designed for.
We also spend real time on the trail-side hip flexor and the quadratus lumborum, the deep muscle between the last rib and the pelvis, which is very often the actual source of the ache people locate vaguely in the low back.
Between rounds
Rotate the other way sometimes. Practice swings in the opposite direction, a few each session, cost nothing and are one of the few genuinely preventive habits available to a one-sided athlete.
And warm up. The single most reliable cause of an injured golfer over forty is a first full swing taken cold in a car park.
Pain that runs down the leg, or numbness, is a different matter and worth a physician’s opinion before more golf.
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