Golf looks gentle from the outside, but anyone who plays knows the truth: it's a rotational sport that generates tremendous force through your spine, hips, shoulders, and wrists hundreds of times per round. A single golf swing produces rotational forces equivalent to eight times your body weight through the lumbar spine. Multiply that by 70-100 swings per round, add practice sessions, and you begin to understand why low back pain is the number one complaint among golfers and why golfer's elbow, shoulder impingement, and hip restriction are so common in the sport.
The asymmetry of golf creates unique challenges. Because the swing rotates the body in one direction repeatedly, one side develops significantly different tension patterns than the other. The lead hip tightens from the follow-through. The trail shoulder overloads from the backswing. The low back absorbs rotational stress that accumulates unevenly. The forearms and wrists on the grip hand develop chronic tension from thousands of swings. Over a season, these asymmetric patterns create the compensations, restrictions, and pain that gradually degrade both your performance and your enjoyment of the game.
Spokane's golf season runs from late March through October, and our courses — from Downriver to Indian Canyon to the courses across the state line in Idaho — see heavy play all summer. The golfers I work with share remarkably similar patterns: low back pain that intensifies as the round progresses, lead hip restriction that limits their rotation and costs them distance, forearm tension that threatens to become golfer's elbow, and the shoulder tightness that makes the backswing shorter and more painful each year. These aren't signs of aging — they're signs of a body that needs better maintenance.
When I work with golfers, I address the specific demands of the sport: deep work on the low back and obliques to release rotational strain, hip flexor and rotator release to restore the mobility the swing needs, forearm and wrist work to prevent golfer's elbow, and shoulder and chest opening to maintain backswing range. Cupping on the low back and thoracic spine provides the decompressive relief that rotational compression creates. Red light therapy supports cellular repair in tissue that repetitive stress damages at the micro level.
Every session at Soothe & Sage includes cupping, red light therapy, salt stones, steamed towels, aromatherapy, and warm packs at one flat rate with no add-on fees. Maintain the body your game depends on.