Knee Pain Golfing

Do You Get Knee Pain When Golfing?

Watch the video to learn tips to improve your golf swing and prevent left or right knee pain when golfing...

Knee Pain Guide by Knee Pain Specialist Dr. Dave Candy. More 4 Life, St. Louis, Manchester, Ballwin, Chesterfield, Des Peres, Ellisville, MO Learn to relieve: knee pain when going up and down stairs, knee pain when sitting, knee pain when walking, and more!

Common Areas Where People Get Knee Pain Golfing

People commonly have knee pain golfing on the outside of their lead leg, or the inside of their trail leg.

For a right-handed golfer, this means pain on the outside of the left knee, or pain on the inside of the right knee during their golf swing.

The knee joints weren't designed to twist very much, and golfing requires a lot of rotation.  Twisting too much through the knees is a good way to irritate the ligaments and tendons that run along the sides of the knees, as well as the knee cartilage.

However, one of the most common times when people have knee pain golfing is actually when walking the course, especially if they're carrying a heavy golf bag.

In more severe cases, just walking from the golf cart to their ball and vice versa can cause knee pain.

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How To Play Golf With A Sore Left Knee

If you're a right-handed golfer, one of the most common places to get knee pain golfing is on the outside of the left knee as you follow through.

If you're following through appropriately, your body should twist to the left during your follow through.  However, if you do this on a planted left foot, it can cause the outside of your left knee to get sore where the IT band crosses the knee.

A simple tip to avoid this is to turn your left foot and knee outward (away from the midline of your body) just slightly.

This allows you rotate your hips and trunk through without causing excessive twisting on your left knee.

Additionally, if you allow your weight to roll a little bit onto the outside of the left foot as you follow through, you can get even more rotation without excessively twisting your knees.

*These tips help protect your left knee in golf if you're a right-handed golfer.  If you're a left-handed golfer, just reverse the lefts and rights above in order to prevent right knee (lead knee) pain when golfing.

How To Prevent Right Knee Pain Playing Golf

Again, I'm going to assume in these instructions that you're a right-handed golfer.

It's common for right handed golfers to get pain on the inside of their right knee (trail knee).

This can happen either on their back swing or follow through.

How to prevent right knee pain on your back swing during golf

Right-handed golfers can get pain on the inside of their during their backswing if they allow their right knee to buckle inwards.

This happens if you have too much weight on the big toe side of your foot.

Instead, if you allow your weight to shift to the outside (little toe side) of your right foot as you go into your back swing, you can keep your hip, knee, and foot in alignment.

Additionally, loads potential energy in your back swing, like winding up a spring tightly.  This allows you to unwind the spring as you go into your downswing. This, in turn, will help you create more power in your golf swing.

How to prevent right knee pain on your follow through during golf

If you've done your backswing as above, the next step is to unwind the spring as you start your downswing.

Your weight should shift from the outside of the right foot toward the big toe side of the right foot as you enter your downswing.  Your pelvis should rotate through at the same time.

As you pass through ball contact and go into your follow through, if you leave your right foot panted on the ground, you're going to create a lot of torque through your right knee. This can have two adverse consequences:

  1. It can create right knee pain during your golf swing
  2. You won't be able to follow through as well, which will affect the power and the distance of your shot

Instead, as your pelvis rotates through and your weight gets to the big toe side of your foot, allow your pelvis to continue following through the ball to face the direction that you want your shot to go.

As you do this, allow your right foot to pivot on the ball of the foot so that you end up on your right big to at the end of your follow through.

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Like this post? Here are some other posts about how to relieve pain when golfing:

How To Prevent Shoulder Pain When Golfing

How To Prevent Back Pain When Golfing

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