When the Golfer’s Back Pain Is Not Just a Back Problem

A healthy, active lady in her 60s came to JANMI with pain around her right lumbar and upper glute area.

She is a successful executive, in good health, and an enthusiastic golfer. I always find golfers interesting to assess, because golf looks elegant and calm from the outside, but inside the body it is a very demanding rotational event.

A golf swing is not just an arm movement. It is a full-body spiral.

The feet ground.The knees adapt.The hips rotate.The pelvis transfers force.The ribcage turns.The scapula glides.The shoulder follows.The neck organises the head.

When this chain works well, the swing looks smooth. When one link becomes restricted, another link usually starts working too hard.

This lady came with pain in the right lower back and upper glute, but during the JANMI assessment, another important clue appeared. Her left shoulder blade was restricted, her left shoulder flexion was limited, and she felt discomfort travelling towards the posterior deltoid region.

For me, this changed the whole story.

The pain was speaking from the right lower back, but the body was whispering from the left shoulder blade.

In JANMI, I always remind my readers: most pain is not where the problem starts.

The right lumbar and upper glute area may have become the “protector” in this pattern. Muscles such as the quadratus lumborum, lumbar erectors, gluteus medius, gluteus maximus, deep hip rotators, and thoracolumbar fascia may begin to overguard when the rotational chain is not moving freely.

But why would the right lower back protect?

One possible reason is that the opposite side of the upper body is not contributing properly.

The left scapula must move freely across the ribcage — a motion controlled by muscles rather than a true joint. During shoulder flexion, it needs to upwardly rotate, posteriorly tilt, and externally rotate while coordinating with the thoracic spine and ribcage to allow full, pain-free arm elevation. If this movement is restricted, the shoulder may lose freedom, and the body starts borrowing movement from somewhere else.

And the body is very good at borrowing.

Unfortunately, it often borrows from the wrong account.

In a golfer, if the left scapula and shoulder cannot move well, the right lumbar and upper glute region may begin to stabilise excessively during rotation. The swing may still happen, but the body starts paying for it with tension, compression, and protective guarding.

This is why I do not look only at the painful area.

At JANMI, I look at the full chain:

Foot → Knee → Hip → Ribcage → Scapula → Neck

With this type of pattern, I would assess hip rotation, pelvic control, ribcage mobility, scapular movement, shoulder flexion, breathing pattern, and how the body compensates during rotation.

The real question is not only, “Where does it hurt?”

The better question is:

Which part of the chain is overworking, and which part has stopped contributing?

Modern life makes this pattern very common. Many people sit for long hours, work under stress, drive, use screens, breathe shallowly, and then expect the body to perform a beautiful athletic movement at the weekend.

The body was designed for walking, reaching, rotating, bending, climbing, resting, breathing, and adapting. Golf exposes the places where that natural rhythm has been interrupted.

In this case, the right lower back pain may not be simply a lower back problem. It may be part of a cross-chain rotational imbalance involving the left scapula, ribcage, shoulder, pelvis, and gluteal system.

The JANMI approach would be to calm the overguarding right lumbar and upper glute tissues, restore hip and pelvic movement, improve thoracic and ribcage rotation, and help the left scapula move more freely again.

The left shoulder blade needs to reconnect with the ribcage. The right glute and lower back need to stop behaving like tired security guards standing outside a nightclub at 2 am.

They are trying to protect, but they are exhausted.

This is where skilled soft tissue therapy becomes useful.

Hands-on work can help reduce protective tone, improve tissue quality, restore movement awareness, and prepare the body for better corrective exercise.

This case is a beautiful reminder that the body is not a machine made of separate parts.

It is one intelligent chain.

Sometimes the pain appears in the lower back, but the deeper story begins in the shoulder blade. Sometimes the glute is tight because the ribcage is not rotating. Sometimes the shoulder hurts because the pelvis is not helping. And sometimes, after a few decades of meetings, emails, cars, chairs, and weekend golf, the body simply says:

“Can we please move like humans again?”

That is the JANMI work.

We listen to the painful area, but we do not stop there.

We follow the chain.

JANMI Integrated Soft Tissue Therapy, Paulius Jurasius

For educational purposes only. This blog post is not medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or a substitute for an individual assessment.