GOLF DIGEST July 2021

Page 20

PAIN GAINS

II PART

After identifying the most common golf injuries last month, Optimal Fitness osteopath Russell Hill is now focused on ensuring you don’t fall into a perpetual injury cycle.

I

njuries are sadly common in amateur golf. Data highlights that 28 percent of all players have back pain after every round, 35 percent will have sustained an injury in the last 12 months and 70 percent of these will result in the amateur missing play or practising due to the niggle. It all equates to frustration and unnecessary cost. Your leisure time is precious enough without injury robbing you of a chance to play and those expensive membership fees are exempt from lost-time deductions. It is even more annoying to keep re-injuring the same area of our body which leaves you pulling your hair out as it takes longer and longer each time to return to the game we all love. So, how did you get into an injury cycle and how do we get out of it? The primary goal should be prevention which I will outline later. First off, we need to understand how and why common injuries occur. An underappreciated scenario is when amateurs are trying to implement swing changes. The Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) has identified 12 suboptimal swing characteristics that are commonly occurring among golfers. These can be as a result of being self-taught and/or poor programming of our body. Each one of them can also be linked to poor movement patterns.

THE ONE KNOWN FACT ABOUT INJURY IS THAT THE MOST COMMON RISK FACTOR TO SUSTAINING AN INJURY IS PAST INJURY.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.