Flag Hunters Golf Podcast

Backs That Swing Free

• Jesse Perryman

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Golf shouldn’t come with a side of fear. When your first thought on the tee is “don’t let my back go,” your swing tightens and your brain starts guarding. We sat down with osteopath and author Gavin Rutledge to replace that fear with a clear plan: understand what your pain is (and isn’t), use the right movements at the right time, and train a back your brain can trust.

Gavin demystifies sciatica by showing it’s a description, not a diagnosis, and breaks down the difference between nerve compression and referred pain in plain language. We dig into why some stretches feel great but set you back hours later, how to spot signs of instability, and why most golfers need more mid‑back and hip mobility alongside lower‑back stability. You’ll hear practical warm‑up advice for busy players who sprint from work to the first tee, plus the simple rules that guide safe progress: use it but don’t abuse it, start low and build slow. We also explore proven prevention tools like the McGill Big Three and posterior‑chain training to wake up glutes and hamstrings dulled by sitting.

What makes this conversation different is the mind‑body clarity. Gavin shares his pain equation—how nociception, attention, pain memory, and mindset interact—and shows how safe, confident movement and better stories quiet the alarm. We connect this science to performance: when your back is strong and your plan is measured, the subconscious stops protecting and your swing can finally release. If you want to play multiple days, in any weather, without guarding, this is your blueprint for pain‑free and confident golf.

Grab Gavin’s free scorecard to see where you can improve: go.painfreeandconfident.com. If this helped you, follow the show, share it with a golf buddy who needs it, and leave a quick review so more players can swing without fear.

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To find Justin best, please find him on Instagram @elitegolfswing or email him, justin@elitegolfswing.com

To find Jesse best, also find him on Instagram @flaghuntersgolfpod or TEXT him, (831)275-8804.

Flag Hunters is supported by JumboMax Grips and Mizuno Golf

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Flaghunters Golf Podcast. My name is Jesse Perryman, and I am your host of All Things Golf Improvement. This week we have my man Gavin Rutledge on, the author of a book called Pain Free and Confident. This talks about our back folks. And those who have played this game for a long time or play it at a very intense level understand very well the adverse effects that this game of golf can have on our backs and just the everyday walk in life. There are those of us who sit and uh and don't get a lot of movement going on, and the back and the hips are the main sufferers of this phenomenon. And Gavin talks about how to get out of this. He wrote a book called Pain Free and Confident. And this conversation is fantastic. It really uh starts to get into some of the reasons why, and some of the reasons why our back is in pain, that we have chronic stiffness, sciatica, all of these manifestations of an ill-advised back, if you will. And Gavin discusses it in great detail. I highly recommend to go to his website, excuse me, to go to his website. It is golfgoolf.painfreeandconfident.com. There is an assessment on there that you can take. You can get a hold of them. I do have the book. It's fantastic. And a lot of times, what happens is those of us who will go on the internet and research what's going on with our back will get a few stretches here and there. It'll feel good temporarily, and then it'll go snap right back into the same chronic uh problem and pattern that it has. And unfortunately, fortunately, our nervous system is gonna save us and help us adjust uh and protect those parts of the back that could be exposed uh due to lack of movement, uh, you know, poor swing mechanics, anything that you could think of that would cause a bad back. And uh Gavin really discusses it. So I hope you appreciate and understand this information and use it to uh awaken uh potentially that what you or I more importantly, because I have fallen uh victim to this myself uh through my own ignorance, that you just go down the wrong rabbit holes and you end up trying to fix something that's not the source of the issue. And Gavin really gets into that. So uh enjoy. Uh you want to take care and protect your back. It's it links everything, it affects everything in our lives, and it can cloud our perception of life and everything else. And I've experienced it, and I'm working extremely hard to get out of it with a lot of success, and uh, and Gavin certainly has helped pave the way. And this is something that I'm gonna do periodically throughout the year and uh talk about some of these things that are gonna help us uh play pain-free and uh be able to move freely. And I think that once the subconscious knows that your back and your physical attributes are in good form, you're gonna be able to let it go a little bit more on the golf course. Playing pain-free, having energy out there, and not having your mind diverted into protective mode when you want it into fully present, 100% and engaged mode out of the golf course. So cheers, everyone. Have a great week, and please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. And Justin has the day off from recording today. That's okay. You can find him at the Tanamera Golf Club in Singapore. Justin, my brother from Another Mother, one of the great minds in uh in the instructional space in golf. Our guest today is Gavin Rutledge. He is from Edinburgh, Scotland. He's an osteopath. His expertise is helping us not only demystify what we should and shouldn't do, but give us good ideas and clear direction on how to get our backs right in this game. Gavin, thank you for coming. It's a pleasure and a privilege to have you on, sir.

SPEAKER_02:

Pleasure is all mine, Jesse. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, my pleasure. Gavin, give us a uh a background. So the background, I have been an osteopath man and boy. Um, first had a neck pain when I was 15 years old playing rugby, and uh went to see an osteopath. He fixed me in one and that set the seed. And so I then trained to be an osteopath. Um, had seven years of lower back pain in sciatica through sport and weight training and everything in my 20s. So I decided to um focus on lower back pain and I've specialized in it ever since, solving my own problem along the way, and now um helping people typically with persistent, sort of recalcitrant back problems to understand how they can solve their back pain.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, uh, you're in the right place, my friend, because I'm sure myself very much included in this and our listeners, that having back issues is almost synonymous with playing the game of golf. Especially, you know, in our in our podcast, Gavin, we we focus a lot on technique. And the better your technique, the better chances that you stack the deck in your favor not to have these injuries or these ailments. However, not all of us are born with certain natural abilities, and not all of us have the best technique. Usually the manifestation of that is some back issues, a lot of back issues. So let's dive right in. How can we you know it's it's sciatica? That's a pretty common thing in this game.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

What you know, for first specify what sciatica is.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so sciatica is a description and not a diagnosis. Sciatica is uh pain and or pins and needles in the distribution of your sciatic nerve, which originates in your buttock, travels down the back and outside of the thigh, and supplies nearly everything below the knee. Uh, there's a little thin strip down the front of the shin that it doesn't supply. But pain in that area would be described as sciatica. But as I said before, it's just a description. It's like going to the doctor with a sore head, and the doctor's saying, You've got a headache. It's like, thanks. Um, so the key thing I'm always trying to work out is why do you have the sciatica? What's causing that sciatica? And broadly we can split that into two groups there's nerve compression sciatica and non-nerve compression sciatica. Nerve compression is easy to understand. Most common one is a disc bulge at the base of the spine irritating one of the roots, uh, one of the nerves that originates there that becomes part of the sciatic nerve. So that's nerve compression. Then non-nerve compression is um otherwise known as referred pain. So you could have a problem typically in your lower back, and the nerve supply to that problem is the same as the nerve supply down your leg. So your brain feels it in your leg, but it's actually all coming from your back. And again, there's a number of possible causes of nerve compression satica and of non-nerve compression satica. But here's the good news, Jesse. To some extent, we don't need to know the diagnosis because I've got a bunch of rules and a system that works regardless of the underlying cause.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's fantastic. You know, kind of uh one idea that fixes 10 ideas. Yeah. Something like that. That's that's big. That's that's big. Well, I mean, in this game, you know, first and foremost, I noticed that with myself included, uh, we we we get off work or we're we're in a hurry and we want to get to the golf course and get to our club. And a lot of times we play cold. We're we don't have the body prepped for that. Now tell our listeners are there dangers to doing that consistently? Is that okay to do every now and again? Or are we better off foregoing the range? This is just a random question because it happens all the time. People get off work and they just go straight to the golf course, they go straight to the first T. Yeah. Uh is it okay to do that every once in a while? What are the dangers behind that doing that consistently? And are we better off foregoing the five, 10 balls we hit before then and doing some movements and then going? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh lots of thoughts, Jesse. Uh I'll I'll throw them out randomly. Uh, first one is you you're you are always better to be consistent in what you do. So if if you just don't ever do a warm-up, you're probably in a better place for teeing off without a warm-up than someone who does normally do a warm-up. Uh, because their their backs used to be in warmed up before they tee off. So that's one answer. Uh the other one is, yeah, broadly, I would say we're all better off. You know, the golf swing is quite a strenuous activity, especially with a driver off the first tee. And so you you ought to warm up for that, you know, whether you know the the pros, you know, typically they're warming up for what 90 minutes, two hours before a round of golf. Yeah, you know, putting, chipping, working their way up through the irons before they get to the long clubs. So, yeah, you know, they know something. Um, and if you want to be well prepared for your round of golf, then a warm-up is definitely um beneficial.

SPEAKER_00:

That solves my question selfishly.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, we're all on the same page. So here I was playing golf a couple of weeks ago, and um the the warm-up was a bacon roll on the way to the course. Um, at that particular, and it was quite a cold morning. And when when we got on the first sea, I said to the guys, listen, none of you have done a warm-up. Yeah, we've had a bacon roll and a coffee, Gav. Um, so um, yeah, not healthy.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I've got a big question, and it's a question that I've had, and I'm sure there this has been in the back of many golfers' minds. And there's so much ambiguous information gaving out there. We don't know what quite quite what to do with with applying the information, and that is stretching.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh stretching.

SPEAKER_00:

Stretching. I mean, oh my gosh, you know, uh let's let you're the expert, my friend. Is stretching good? Is stretching bad? What is it?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, I I I'm sure this will help, but it yeah, I'm giving you an ambiguous answer initially. So stretching is good for people that need to stretch. Um, but for many people, it's the worst thing they could possibly do. So, and I'll give you a good example. So, one of the fairly common causes of lower back pain, especially persistent lower back pain, uh, is disc problems. So, and as we get older, particularly when we hit middle age, our discs degenerate, you know, they they get a little bit friable, so you get little tears at the back of the disc. And this doesn't necessarily have to be a full blown disc prolapse, it can be what we call an annular tear, which is like a grade one disc problem. Now, that's always at oh yeah, 99% of the time, it's at the back of the disc, usually in a corner. You get a little tear in the disc. Now that needs to heal by the formation of scar tissue. And if you stretch it during that healing phase, you're gonna re-tear the scar tissue. Now, very often it doesn't hurt when you stretch it because the disc itself doesn't have a nerve supply. So you can stretch it, it feels fine, you feel nice for stretching because all your muscles feel a bit looser, but you're actually re-traumatizing the back of the disc and it will then get inflamed. And typically several hours, maybe as long as 24 hours later, it will be stiff and sore. And that's because you stretched it too soon. So it's what I call picking the scab before it's ready to fall off. So that's a very specific scenario where I would say stretching is a bad idea. But there's lots of others of common problem, is what we call joint instability, where maybe one of the joints in your lower back is a little bit looser than its neighbors. So when you do a golf swing, for instance, it's a really complex maneuver, long lever maneuver, lots of joints taking part. If you've got one joint that's looser than the others, the movement will hinge through that joint and you'll strain it. The same thing applies to stretching. If you do a long lever stretch, so let's say you bend over and touch your toes, or you're lying on your back with your knees bent up and you let them fall to one side, we call it like the windscreen wiper type exercise. Um, that movement's going to be hinging through that irritable joint. So that stretch is inappropriate for someone with instability. So there's lots of situations where I would say stretching is not only unhelpful, it's counterproductive.

SPEAKER_00:

I would say that that's a powerful statement. Yeah. And and individually, is there something that how do we know? You know, here here what I mean by that, Gavin, is is like, say for example, you're doing the the windshield wiping stretch when you're flat on your back and you're rotating your knees right and left. And in the moment it feels really good. And and that's sort of the uh what what uh puts us under a spell. Okay, so if it makes us feel good temporarily, is there a movement or movements that we can do instead of that would somewhat accomplish what we're trying to do with getting loose and also strengthening in this particular scenario?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Okay, I'm I'm gonna stick take a bigger step back, Jesse, to answer that. Um, so I've got three rules of rehabilitation. And the first rule is use it or lose it, but don't abuse it. So don't do things that are either sore at the time or you're more sore after you've done them. Because you're not gonna get better. You know, it's like if you hit your your thumb with a hammer, you're not gonna keep tapping it with a hammer afterwards. You're just gonna leave it well alone for it to heal. It's the same thing with your back. If you do anything that hurts either at the time or it's more sore later, that's a bad thing. I call it an aggravator. So don't do it. So that's the don't abuse it bit. But the other part of that rule is use it or lose it. So the more movement that you do that doesn't hurt, the better. And so if stretching is potentially an issue and there is a test for instability that we can do in a clinical environment, it's difficult to do to yourself. But a good indicator of um, particularly um marked instability, is if your back pain is really sore when you turn over in bed, so when you twist to get out either get out of bed or turn in bed, there's a reasonable chance you've got instability. Um, if it's painful when you transition as you get up out of the car or as you get up out of a seat, there's a reasonable chance you've got instability in one of your joints. So in those situations, I wouldn't be doing much stretching, but I would be moving. So walking is usually good therapy for backs because as your hips lift up and drop down from side to side, the lower back is just doing gentle movement from side to side. But again, coming back to that first rule, use it or lose it, but don't abuse it. If it feels good and it's no more so after you've done the thing, then it's almost certainly a good thing for you.

SPEAKER_00:

That that makes sense.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And very simple.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Coming coming back to or roping back into the kind of warm-up question, Jesse. Um a warm-up depends on the person. So what's good for one person's back may not be good for another.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure.

SPEAKER_02:

But if I can give general advice, um golfers that I would see, I would say 80% of the golfers I see with bad backs, usually they need to stabilize and strengthen the low back. And they need to mobilize the mid back, the thoracic spine, and the hips. So the more flexibility you can get through your hips and your mid-back, that takes the strain off your lower back, and your lower back, you want to be stable and strong.

SPEAKER_00:

That makes sense. 100% sense. So, Gavin, to clear up the ambiguity, stretching versus movements. Now, you we identified walking. Say, you know, take me through a hypothetical assessment, which you know might be hard to do right now, but um you know, just in theory, if somebody has uh some instabilities in their back, what can they do aside besides going to see someone like yourself? But how how can they get their awareness more increased with, okay, so if I've got sciatica, for example, and stretching might be even more of an irritant to it, and in fact might be making it worse, what's the corollary? What can we do? Excuse me, what can we do now movement-wise to strengthen those instabilities, get more flexibility, more blood flow down there, and have a you know, a quote unquote oily oil oilier back when we play.

SPEAKER_02:

Um so uh we do much as I said, we we don't need a diagnosis in most cases. We need to be sure that someone doesn't need to be going to a see a surgeon first. You know, there are about two point zero five percent of persistent lower back pains are due to what we call pathology. So I don't want to freak people out, but there are some nasty things that can go on in the body that can cause persistent lower back pain. But we've got a bunch of what we call red flag safety questions that can screen those out. So once we screen those out, then it comes down to sort of categorizing the type of pain people have. And we do that by movements. So if your back pain is worse when you bend forwards or when you sit, because most people, when they sit, bend forwards a little bit in the lower back. That's what I call flexion intolerance. So flexion is forward bending. So if you've got flexion intolerant, lower back pain or sciatica, then you need to avoid forward bending movements. And usually the movements that will give you relief are backward bending movements. And the inverse is also true. If you're someone who uh gets a sharp jab of pain on the follow-through, that's typically because you're dropping into extension, you're arching your back backwards. Then you should avoid those movements as best you can. But usually people will feel better for going into flexion, so curling up into a ball for relief. And so so you'll notice I mentioned the word relief there twice. So I think of my exercises, there's two types. We've got exercises for relief, those are relievers, and then we've got exercises for prevention. And the exercises for prevention are very different from the ones for relief. Relief is all about moving in the opposite direction to the pain. And again, coming back to my first rule: any movement that doesn't hurt is a good thing. Whereas prevention usually, especially if you've got instability in your lower back, preventative exercises are about building stability and strength. So one of the um researchers that I cite in my latest book is a guy, Stuart McGill, uh, who's a professor of biomechanics from Canada, spent his whole career focused on the biomechanics of the lower back, and I credit him uh in the book. So I'm a big fan of his so-called McGill Big Three exercises. Uh, and if you Google them, you'll f you'll find all sorts of people showing you how to do them, some of them very inaccurately. You're probably better to find Stuart McGill himself demonstrating how to do them. We demonstrate them to our colleagues, our patients, when we work with people online. Um, and so that's our kind of bread and butter preventative exercises to start with, and then we progress people depending on what their goals are and what their capacity is.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Um it's I find it very interesting that a lot of the common complaints or comments that I hear at my club is ah, my back's sore, uh, my back's, you know, this and my back is that. It's pretty common. This is going to lead to another question. I'm gonna throw you curveball here, Gavin.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh uh, you know, I like to I like to at least pit some disciplines against each other every now and again, but uh but no, um um I'm joking, but you you know, another thing too is chiropractic care. Is it good? Or is it kind of the same thing? It depends on a case-by-case basis with chiropractic care as it relates to the low back.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh yeah, listen, I think there's good, bad, and different in every profession. Um, and and a good chiropractor is worth his weight in gold, her his or her weight in gold, especially in what I call the relief stage. So I don't think I've mentioned it so far, Jesse. I talk about the cliff of pain. Uh, this is a metaphor I came up with 25 years ago. People come to us, they're in the sea of suffering, they're in pain, and they want to regain the cliff top. That's the relief phase. The trouble is, if that's as far as you go, you're still on the edge of another fall. And all it takes is another little puff of wind, uh, you know, getting your clubs out of the trunk slightly awkwardly, and bang, you fall back into the sea of suffering again. And people spend years yo-yoing in and out of pain. Yep. So the second stage of the journey is prevention, and that's about getting as far back from the edge as possible. And the things that you do to achieve relief, and chiropractic is a good example of that, are not very good at achieving prevention. Okay. So people use painkillers, you know. I don't know what your locker room's like, but there's so many guys pop in pills before they go out on a round. Oh, yeah. Uh, those are just they're just relievers, they're never going to prevent your pain from coming back again. They're just short-term relievers. So I would always look at, you know, what are we doing for relief? And chiropractic could form part of that. Um, but ultimately, how do we get back from the edge? That's prevention, and that's a very different proposition.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that is well said, Gavin. And this podcast is all about that. Uh, exactly what you said. We're we we like to identify root causes and build from there. We want to build from there because uh I myself, I don't want to be in that yo-yo phase ever. Yeah, you know, I would I would rather prefer to go through short-term whatever uh uncomfortableness uh to build stronger, a stronger, more stable, particularly low back. You know, um you're you're in Scotland, I'm on the Monterey Peninsula, so that would be construed as kind of cold, colder weather environments. And usually the back is the first to really you know tighten up, but with a strong, stable, mobile back, particularly low back, you know, that's that's gonna really stack the deck in our favor to play not only in colder environments, but any environment. So you know, and the functionality behind that, Gavin, is playing multiple days, especially in in higher level tournament golf. Uh if if you if you have any sort of back ailment, at least if you even even even if you pop some ibuprofen, it seems like the subconscious knows already that there's something that's compromised. So I want the listener to really hear this. Your subconscious knows, your body knows, your body's pretty smart and it's gonna adjust. And typically those adjustments are gonna come at the expense of swing mechanics. Yeah, let's uh yeah. So, you know, for you as an osteopath, how can how so we can go to your clinic, we can get assessed, and I want and I say, Gavin, okay, thank you for clarifying the stretching part. Thank you for clarifying the relief versus the the building. Okay, how can we create a program and get on a consistent program to re-strengthen, restructure, rebuild our backs, remobilize them, and and and play golf fairly well? I mean, I I believe that age primarily is a state of mind. I know that the old man comes in and takes us all. But how can we not only delay the inevitable, but really stack the deck in our favor to be functionally moving?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So coming back to my cliff of pain, you need to get back from the edge. So often over the years, a phrase I've heard so many times is all I was doing was, and then my back went. And so when I hear that phrase, all I was doing was, is I know all that was as a trigger. It's the last straw, it's the thing that just knocked them off the edge. It's not really the cause of your back pain, it's the thing that just pushed you off the edge. The key question is how did you come to be on the edge in the first place? And to answer that, we need to look as I did at the literature. So my master's degree is in pain management, and I focused um in my project entirely on lower back pain. So I can tell you what the risk factors are for persistent and recurring lower back pain. So we go through those with our um our clients and identify which risk factors are active in any given individual, and then we work our way through them, starting whichever one they want to start with, to eliminate those risk factors so that they can step back from the edge of the cliff. So that's one technique. The other one is we also use a special category called preventers. So preventers help you move back from the edge. And there are six, I call them preventers, essential practices, um, which I wrote about in a recent book. And the first one is measure. You know, if you're not measuring, you you don't know where you are. You know, quite often people will say, you know, clinicians will say, How's your back being? And you say, Well, I think it's feeling a bit better. No, that's not good enough. We need some hard measures. So we use something called the back score, which is um a validated questionnaire, um, a clinical tool to help determine how much of an impact your back pain is having on the quality of life. So we measure and then we also measure in the sense of we track changes over time. So how much is your pain changing and how much are the things that you do day to day changing so that we can start to see patterns. So measure is essential practice number two, and I'll rattle through the other ones. Then we come to reduce certain things you're going to need to reduce. Then we have relax, and I'll explain to you why relax is in there in a moment. Optimize things you have to optimize, relate. So relate has two meanings. One is we have to make sure everything relates to your end goal. So what we're trying to optimize for, and the other meaning of relate is the stories that you tell yourself about your back. And finally enjoy. It's really important that you enjoy life and that you enjoy relationships because that has a big bearing on persistent pain as well. So that was a bit of a run through, Jesse. Where what do you want me to lean into next?

SPEAKER_00:

I I mean that that's I I really want to take that in, Gavin. Uh, you you just identified the the complete picture, the holistic approach. Yeah. And that's what we're all about. Um you're one of the first experts, in my opinion, uh, in as it relates to this and the physical body, that really has put into the stories that we tell our back, how we talk to ourselves. And uh, you know, the words that we say have a lot of power, and the body acquiesces to that.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know, Jesse, if you stand on the first T and say, I better not hit it in the water, yeah. Guess what? Yeah, it's the same, it's the same with your back. If if you're thinking, Oh, I hope my back doesn't go today, it's gonna tighten up. So we help people have not it's and it's not just empty words, this is not just positive hopefulness. Right. It's actually we give them all the tools so that they can start to believe that their back is getting stronger. Because what we aim to deliver is a strong, pain-free lower back they can have confidence in and coming back to my cliff. The only place you can be confident is when you're right back from the edge. Right. You know, you can be pain-free on the edge, but you're still anxious, and that's no good. You need to get to a point where you can be confident your back is as strong as you need it to be to do the things you want to do.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna add to that. Uh I I can just imagine being on the first T and having the confidence knowing that uh whatever, like you know, I've had sciatic, sciatica, and there's a small part of me that's gonna hold back, and I know this because I am aware. And if there's a small part of you that's gonna hold back, that might that small part might just be the engine behind any sort of anxiety, and people don't even know it. You know, uh yeah, like I said, the body is pretty intelligent, it's gonna adjust whether you want whether you want it to or not. It's gonna there's gonna be some compromises in one's golf swing if they know that there's something in their physical body, primarily their lower back, that's gonna hold them back. They're not gonna be able to get up and fully let it rip. And that's sort of one of the undercurrent mantras of our podcast is to be able to get up and swing freely, no matter what the situation is. And your physical well-being is a massive part of that. It is a massive part. Um, you know, I mean, I think the physical is going to leach into the mental, uh, especially the subconscious mind. And and and I have a personal question as it relates to sciatica, uh, Gavin, and that is as before we we started, you know, I talked about telling you about the back extensions and doing some glute, some glute stuff, some hamstring stuff with a Nordic bench. And I have found that those movements have uh it's been a godsend. When I do the movements fairly regularly, I'm gonna say every two out of three days, my back it it's it's like I've got a new back. Yeah, it doesn't do that when I stretch. No, no, not at all. You know, and and I was going down that rabbit hole of man, I need to stretch more, I need to go to yoga, all this and that. Well, some of those things certainly helped. My body intuitively knows that the movements of back extensions, working on my glutes, working on my hamstrings, and things like that, the whole posterior chain has done more for me than any stretch ever.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a big, big breakthrough for a lot of people. Um, and certainly confirms, like you. So I had seven years of lower back pain in sciatica in my 20s, and doing um a very similar exercise, um, a back extension, but loading my whole posterior chain is was a daily thing for me. I did it six days out of seven for probably 10 years. Um, because I was scared if I stopped doing it, maybe my pain would come back again. So I just kept doing it for a long, long time. Um, and I still work my posterior chain, but you know, only three times a week now. Um, so and yeah, the you know, the Nordic bench is a good way of doing it, but there's lots of other ways as well. Um, but absolutely, and particularly for a very sedentary society, you know, if you're someone who has to sit in a chair a lot, your posterior chain just switches off. Um, and it and then worse than that, your hamstrings tighten up and you know, all sorts of things start to go wrong. So, yeah, I think you should really be getting that posterior chain firing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's uh those words are worth their weight in gold. Gather them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you but remember, yeah, still apply the the three rules. And I think I've only touched on one use it or lose it, but don't abuse it because for some people they're not ready for doing Nordic bench type exercises, they need to start a lower level. But so long as it doesn't hurt, then the second rule comes into play, which is start low and build slow. So you should always be trying to progress. Don't don't settle for I'm okay. You know, if if you're getting stronger, keep getting stronger.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna just let that marinate a little bit. The simplicity of those words, Gavin, are uh very impactful and powerful, you know, and and I I want all my friends that listen to really take that in. Um there's a way out. Uh and and the way is through, of course. Uh you're identifying this, and you're talking about something that you've experienced personally, even as a professional, so you know via experience and via education. And I think that that's that's really the combination right there, Gavin. Um I think that the yeah go ahead. Go ahead, excuse me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, there's a there's a phrase I often hear bandied around in my world. It's called lived experience. Um, it seems to be a new thing, but yeah, I definitely have a lot of lived experience of lower back pain and sciatica. Um, and I'm very similar age to you, Jesse. I'm in my mid-50s, and I say to everyone, my back is stronger now than it's ever been because I keep trying to get stronger. Because listen, in nature, nothing stands still. You're either growing or dying. So I want my back to be getting stronger as I get older, not getting weaker.

SPEAKER_00:

That's powerful. Yeah, um there's there's a lot of of truth bombs and golden nuggets that you're dropping here, Gavin. Let's talk about your book. Pain-free and competent golf.

SPEAKER_02:

That's the one. Yeah, that's my my third book, but my first one that's very focused on golfers.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, okay. Give us the quick overview.

SPEAKER_02:

A quick overview. Um, it's an evolution of my thinking since the second book. Um, we've touched on some of the themes in there, like the Cliff of Pain and the Six Essential Practices. Um, and I really was inspired to write it because in autumn 2023, I had three friends come in to see me for treatment in the clinic, um, who are all golfers, all big keen golfers, and they all had sore backs, and they all said a version of as they were leaving, Gav, I just want to be able to golf into my 90s. And um, and the back pain was a real threat to them. And never mind golfing into their 90s, they're all in their fixed 50s or early 60s, and uh, they're really struggling to play golf because their backs were sore. And I thought, you know what, let's do another book specifically for golfers, because there are some very unique elements to golf or end swing mechanics and so on, which um which can impact. But also when you talk to golfers about back pain, it's it's easier for them to take in the information if if they if you know I'm talking to golfers. I'm not just talking to everyone with a sore back, I'm talking to golfers with sore backs.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, Jesse, there's one um framework, if you like, that I haven't mentioned. And if if you don't mind, I'll I'll just dip into now because I think it I think it will really resonate with the with the mind connection that I know that you're very attuned with. Um and I'll start by just telling a little story um to give it some conversation. Context. So this goes back. There was an article published in the British Medical Journal about 30 years ago about a builder on a building site. Uh, he jumped down off some scaffolding and landed on a plank that had a nail up through it. So he's come down in his steel toe cap boots, but the nail has gone straight up through the sole of his boot and reappeared at the top of his boot. So it's about an inch above his foot, it's gone straight through his foot. Poor man is in screaming agony. Big burly builder. So the paramedics are called, they arrive, they have to sedate him before they can get a man in the ambulance. They get to the uh emergency room, uh, they have to sedate him again because he's he's a big, big, solid guy and he's in in agony. And then they get him on the operating table and they cut through his boot, and at that point, the mystery is revealed. And the mystery is that up until that point there's never been any sign of blood. And the reason was is they discovered that the nail had passed between his toes, so it had not even grazed the skin, and yet here was a man in agony, and that's because his brain thought the nail had gone through his foot, and it created all of the pain. And to help you and all the listeners understand how pain really works, and I I know I'm always introduced as an osteopath, but I'm actually I'm a pain guy. My master's degree is in pain management. I understand how pain works. Many clinicians do not understand this. So, pain. So I've got this pain equation. I'm just gonna describe it. And don't, you know, if you hate math, don't worry, don't be put off. There's no real math here. I just laid it out this way to hopefully make it more understandable. So pain equals no susception. Now that's a technical word that we'll come back to at the end. So pain equals no susception plus negative mind state, plus attention, plus pain memory, minus safe, confident movement, plus positive mind state. So if I can unpack that for you. So no susception is what happens out in your body. So we all around our body, we've got these little nerve endings called no susceptors, and they're there to detect things that go wrong. Things like inflammation, trauma, very high temperature, very low temperature, that will make your no susceptors fire. And they send a message into the spinal cord, which goes up to the brain. But at that point, it is only no susception, it's not pain. You have to have a brain to feel pain, right? So it's very important to differentiate. At this point, we're only talking no susception. So the man with the nail through his boot, he had no no susception because there was no damage. But what he did have was a negative mind state. He was scared, his attention was very focused on his foot. So that also drives the pain levels up. Now, pain memory is the other one. So we know that people who have a lot of pain experiences are more inclined to have more pain. So the longer you've had sciatica for Jesse, the more likely you are to have sciatica in the future, purely because your nervous system has learned that pain pathway. So your nervous system is what we call plastic, um, it's adaptable. So if you want to learn Spanish, it's very good at learning Spanish because it adapts and learns that language. But unfortunately, the same mechanism applies to pain. If you keep feeling pain, you're more likely to feel more pain. So those are all the things that will drive your pain up. No susception, negative mind state, attention, and pain memory. The things that will bring your pain levels down are safe, confident movement and a positive mind state. So if you're happy, you're with friends, you're having a good time, you don't notice your pain nearly as much because you're in a good place. Um, and if you can move, so any movement that doesn't cause pain and you're comfortable doing it, that's actually gonna reduce your pain. If you think about it, if you hit your thumb with a hammer, what do you do? You shake your thumb. Yep. That's movement. Yeah, yeah. If you stub your toe, you jump around. That's movement. So any movement that doesn't cause pain is gonna reduce pain, especially if it's a movement that you're comfortable doing and feels nice. And that pain equation, having elaborated that as I did in 2019, that's to some extent where the six essential practices come from. So measure. So we're gonna measure some stuff in there, we're gonna measure your mind, we're gonna measure how much attention you pay to things, we're gonna measure your confident movement, and we're gonna have to reduce something. So we're gonna have to reduce no susception if it's present. We're gonna have to reduce your negative mind state, we're gonna have to take your attention away from your back. So, anyway, I won't go on, but hopefully you get the idea that there's a framework there that's entirely based on science, but is also a set of practical tools that people can use to help themselves recover.

SPEAKER_00:

Boy, very powerful, Gavin. Um that's that's the holistic approach right there in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's Jesse, it's holistic in a scientific way. It's not woo-woo. Yep. This is all science-based stuff. Um, the there's a model of um pain uh called the biopsychosocial model, it's been around since 1977, but most pain practitioners do not practice a biopsychosocial approach, they they practice a reductionist mechanistic approach. So, does your back hurt there? Okay, we'll rub it, we'll crack it, feels a bit better, bye-bye. Um, and you know, that has a place in the short term, sure, but for people with persistent pain, it's it's never gonna solve it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, that clears up a lot of confusion, in my opinion, Gavin. You know, it's funny, uh, the attention of I think that's worth uh examining just a little bit, or at least commenting on when when you when when an individual has their attention on their back, my my in my case, sciatica. Yeah, the more I talk about it, the more I tell people, and then people wanna wanna connect and communicate, and they're well intended, so they're like, Hey Jesse, how's your back? All of that attention's on it. But yeah, if if my attention is off it for the most part, unless it's really flared up and I can't, you know, um, typically that pain goes away. And I think that's worth just at least myself commenting on it. Because I'm I'm uh you know, an avid golfer. I it's a it's a huge part of my life. I have sciatica, uh, and this is giving me a lot of hope that hey, you know, I we could we can go and we can get assessed, we can create a plan holistically, a science-based plan that we can do consistently that can not only reduce the pain and or eliminate it, but we can really get our backs nice, strong, healthy. Uh, I know that those who listen want to move without pain, want to play, get, get on the golf course and and and swing hard at it with with abandon, without any fear of, you know, without any subconscious fear of, well, if I really go after this, I might tweak my back. You know, that that's no way to play golf. You know, we're that's that's yeah. That's why it's called pain-free and confident golf. Exactly. You you took the words right out of my mouth. I was just gonna say that, Gavin, and you beat me to it. Uh, this has been a uh a phenomenal conversation. Um, Gavin, how can people find you? How can people find your book? Pain free and confident golf.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm I'm always busy, Jesse. So if you don't mind, I would direct people to a place of value where they can get some insight straight away. Uh so I have a scorecard um called, well, the URL is go.painfreeandconfident.com. So if you go there, you can answer, I think it's an 18-item questionnaire, and that will give you a score related to those six essential practices. So it will highlight the areas where you could be doing better. Um, and you get immediate value. There's a tailored report spat out at the end that gives you some insights into how you can build that pain-free confident back. So that's where I would point people to. Go.painfreeandconfident.com.

SPEAKER_00:

Excellent. And I will make sure to have uh Gavin's information in the show notes uh along with the Amazon link to his book, Painfree and Confident Golf. And Gavin, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and clearing up so much ambiguity uh as it relates to low back pain uh in this game that we all love to play. And for, you know, I'm gonna say this in closing, and it's something that I've been thinking about quite a bit. You know, us golfers, we're we're kind of a strange bunch, and we're gonna play through pain. We we spend a lot of money playing the game, a lot of time. Uh, we put a lot of our our being into playing this game. So this is so important as a pillar uh to to really identify, diagnose, identify, and and work toward creating a healthy body as a whole. So, Gavin, thank you. I'll make sure that everything is in the show notes, and uh, I'd love to have you on again and continue this conversation.

SPEAKER_02:

I'd love to come on, Jesse, and maybe if you're up for it, we could do a little case study, a live case study with you, Jesse. I would love to do that.