News: Fitness Tips
February 2 2012
10:10 am
Fitness: How to avoid back injuries
By Sean Cochran, Golf Fitness
Research provided by the American Sports Medicine Institute indicates one out of every two golfers will incur a lower back injury due to golf at some point during their playing careers. Empirical evidence indicates the reasons behind this high incidence of injury to lower back center upon physical limitations and inefficient swing mechanics.
Studies suggest the shear forces placed upon the lower back increase exponentially when the biomechanics of the swing are inefficient and require the golfer to create compensations within the phases in the swing. These compensations result in what is termed repetitive movement trauma, and over time this type of trauma can cause injury to the body.
Secondly execution of an efficient golf swing where stress is minimized on the body requires certain levels of joint mobility, flexibility and muscular strength. If the body is lacking in any of these aforementioned physical components, the ability to execute a biomechanically efficient swing will most likely be limited. This type of situation will again lead to the development of compensations thus causing the body to be stressed at high levels which again can lead to injury.
The processes by which the golfer can assist in the prevention of injury are two-fold. Improving the efficiency by which the golf swing is executed will reduce the amount of stress placed upon the body. This is achieved via proper instruction from a qualified instructor and practice.
Secondly, the introduction of exercises to improve one’s levels of joint mobility, flexibility, and muscular strength to develop a physical foundation within the golfer’s body to execute a proficient golf swing. This type of training can eliminate the physical dysfunctions impeding ones golf swing and reduce the potential for injury.
To learn more about Sean Cochran and his golf fitness training exercises and programs go to http://www.seancochran.com.
PGATOUR.com is part of Turner - SI Digital, part of the Turner Sports & Entertainment Digital Network 
Boy, was this article the most useless piece of unhelpful information you ever read? To avoid lower back pain, do exercises to become fit and learn a better, more efficient swing. Thanks so much for the assistance.
So the big fitness tip on how to avoid back injuries is to exercise and take lessons? Wow, what a revelation!
The other big fitness tip is to hire a coach to show you the exercises and how to swing. No golf tips with this nice come-on headline!
PGA should be ashamed of allowing this “ad” to be posted as a tip. Ridiculous. Gimme a tip, I might check the site. No tip?… not interested.
Not as good as an infomercial. At least that shows you something.
Glad to see I’m not the only sucker who thought he was getting a couple of core exercises to work on. Not a problem: I just started on P90X (no, this is not a come-on or ad) and just about everything they do outside of working specific large muscles groups, involves core. Thankfully I have that to fall back on if PGATour.com can’t deliver.
Buenas ideas son apreciadas con respeto y educacion con tantas informaciones para poder usar solo podemos mejorar cada uno su desempeño fisico con buenos resultados gracias por esa grande eyuda que tu proporcionas a los profesionales
I agree my grandma could have given me the same super fitness tip…
The best fitness tips (with videos, not only boring explications) are on the Golf Digest web site.
A study by Vad published several years ago showed that tour players with low back pain had significantly less internal hip rotation on their lead hip. As the golfer is swinging through the ball, the lead hip suddenly stops rotating because it is so stiff, while the upper body continues to turn while holding onto a club going 100 mph. This puts all the stress on the lower back. There are some good stretches for internal hip rotation on the DVD ‘Are You Flexible Enough for Golf?’
I agree with Pedro