Golf Swing Pain Isn't Normal

Like millions of other Americans — more than 47 million in 2024 — you love to get out on the links and play a few rounds of golf with friends. One of the joys of these outings is when you execute the perfect swing — your body moves smoothly and connects with the ball, sending it right where you want it.

These days, that great swing often gets accompanied by pain, and you want to remove this discomfort from your otherwise great day on the golf course.

At SOAR Spine and Orthopedics, our team of orthopedic specialists is here to support athletic pursuits like golf. To that end, we offer golf rehabilitation, which targets many issues that can lead to pain during a golf swing. Let’s take a look.

The mechanics of a golf swing

Of all the movements you make while you play golf, the swing is arguably the one that uses most of your body, including your:

• Neck
• Shoulders
• Elbows
• Wrists
• Back
• Hips
• Knees
• Ankles

To give you an idea about the stresses from a golf swing, the compressive force on your lower back alone during a golf swing is about 1,370 pounds. For context, it takes about 1,220 pounds to herniate a disc. 

Since a good golf swing enlists so many areas of your body, common golf injuries practically stretch from head to toe and include:

• Neck pain
• Rotator cuff damage
• Golfer’s elbow, or medial epicondylitis
• Back pain, including herniated discs
• Knee pain
• Hip pain, such as bursitis and labral damage

This list isn’t complete, but it illustrates that a golf swing is a total-body movement that can lead to overuse or stress injuries all over your body.

Getting help for golf swing pain

The good news is that we act as a one-stop solution for most injuries that lead to pain during a golf swing. These injuries are typically repetitive stress injuries that develop over time in the soft tissues of your major joints and along your spine.

With getting you back to a painless and strong golf swing as our top priority, we offer a wide range of treatments that address these types of injuries, such as:

• Joint injections
• Spine injections
• Nerve blocks
• Physical therapy
• Individualized exercise instruction
• Regenerative medicine
• Acupuncture
• Ice and cold therapies
• Massage therapy

We offer a complete sports medicine suite of services that cater to our more active patients, and in addition to the above, we also encourage holistic practices like yoga, pilates, and tai chi. These practices can help create a more sound foundation for your golf swing while taking the pressure off your damaged tissues.

It’s tough to say here what works best for relieving the pain you encounter when you swing a golf club, but rest assured, we’ve got you covered, and we’ll work with you until you feel comfortable again.

For a more individualized golf rehabilitation plan that targets the source of your discomfort, we invite you to contact us today at one of our offices in Santa Clara or Redwood City, California, to schedule an evaluation.