Is sciatica affecting your golf swing?

26 June

What is sciatica?

Before we get into how sciatica can affect your golf swing, we should first explore what sciatica is. Sciatica is any pain that is felt as a result of pressure on the sciatic nerve. Sciatica is typically experienced as a deep achy pain felt in the buttock or back of the thigh, but can sometimes be explained as a burning, shooting or even tingling pain. When the pressure on the nerve is more severe, the pain can extend to the calf or even the foot.

What causes Sciatica?
Although there can be many causes for sciatica, and your specific case can only be truly determined by your healthcare professional, we can go over the most likely causes.

Lumbar disc bulge
Lumbar disc bulges are very common either by injury or degeneration. When the lumbar disc bulges, it can begin to squish the nerve as it exits the spine, compressing the nerve and leading to the symptoms of sciatica. Due to the common nature of disc degeneration and bulging, alongside environmental stress on the lower back, this is typically the most common cause of sciatica that we see here at Links Health & Performance.
Piriformis Syndrome
A little less common, but still something that we see frequently is piriformis syndrome. This condition arises when the piriformis muscle becomes chronically tight and begins to irritate the sciatic nerve as it exits the pelvis. This is seen more commonly in people with tighter gluteal muscles, pre-existing hip conditions, or previous pelvic floor issues. In our experience, we tend to see piriformis present more in our female patients, but it is not exclusive to women.
Other forms of nerve irritation/compression
Occasionally we will have a patient presenting with sciatica, but they have no signs of any of the common causes. For these patients we usually find that on medical imaging, they have something pressing on the nerve that isn’t supposed to be there. Some of the possible causes of this style of sciatic nerve compression can be; a bony spur, a cyst, scar tissue, or even a cancerous growth.
It is important to note that sciatica arising from these causes are rare, but it is why we undertake a thorough medical history and continued assessment of the condition.

But how does Sciatica affect your swing?

It is important to appreciate that this is a very personal question and will depend on the severity of symptoms, root cause of the condition, individual pain tolerances, and the golf swing mechanics. So let’s break it down into digestible parts.

Symptom severity
Severe symptoms: If the symptoms are severe, or substantially worsen throughout the round or after you play, you should be resting. It is important to give the condition or injury enough time to heal properly.
Moderate symptoms: For people suffering moderate symptoms, we advise 2 things.
1. Avoiding driving ranges or golf simulators, as there is too much repetitive end range movements of the lower back
2. Playing golf using a golf cart is fine at this stage. Avoid walking the course, hitting too hard, we advise only 80% power/distance (we know it’s hard to control yourself, but it is important), and make sure to have a longer warm up with plenty of progressive stretching of the lower back, glutes and hamstrings.
Light/mild symptoms: At this stage, playing a full 18 and walking the course should be okay. You will likely still be experiencing some tightness, mild achy symptoms in the gluteal region, and probably some apprehension to playing full shots, but it is important to use the body. Symptoms should not be increased the day after you play, but you may feel more fatigued than normal after your round.

Root causes

Lumbar disc bulges: Spinal discs have no direct blood supply, so take a long time to heal and unfortunately, they never heal back to what they were like when you were 20yrs old. As a result of this absence of direct blood supply, movement is important and helpful for healing. It is vital that you do not return to loading the discs too quickly. Talk to your health care practitioner to create a plan for getting back to golf gradually. We recommend playing in a golf cart for 9 holes for the first few times back, just to build the confidence in your body back up.

Piriformis syndrome: This can be tricky, although it isn’t as severe as a disc bulge it can be very easily irritated. With a strong focus on treatment, stretching, and strengthening, you should be able to return slowly to golf whilst avoid further aggravation. Take it slow, and be consistent with the advice from your practitioner.

Swing mechanics

Some swing styles put more stress on the lower back than others. I am sure we have all been at the first tee box watching someone tee off and think to ourselves, “how does that not hurt their back?” Well, if they were suffering from sciatica, it probably would.
At LinksHP our health care professionals are all TPI-Certified and can help you adapt your swing either temporarily or work with your golf coach for a more long term swing solution.

Conclusion

Sciatica can be an incredibly debilitating condition, but doesn’t have to mean the end of your golfing days. With a well focused treatment, tailored stretches and exercises and a plan constructed to get you back to playing a full 18, you can expect to be back to your best.
In this blog we touched on many aspects of sciatica and it’s relevance to golfers. If reading this made you think you could benefit from seeing one of our practitioners, feel free to reach out to us here at Links Health & Performance.