Back Pain with Lateral Hip Slide

I've started to experiment with trying a lateral hip slide in the downswing. Today, I was really trying to push my left hip toward my left as far as I could in order to get a good straight left wrist and be able to have as much weight on my left side at impact. However, I quickly started to develop some lower (lumbar) back pain. I have enough experience with injuries to know that's a signal to stop doing what I was doing and quickly stopped practicing that way. The S&T folks recommend the lateral movement, but I'm a little hesitant to try it again.

My question is whether anyone else has experienced lower back pain when trying to incorporate a lateral hip movement during the downswing. Also, does anyone know whether this is common or if it might indicate I'm doing something incorrectly? As a side note, I've never had back pain from golfing thus far.

Thanks!!!

I think your trying to hard to hip slide your moving your head away from the target and creating extra strain, reverse weight shift. I had back problems a couple times a year because my head use to drop down and away from the target as my hips slid forward.

But a good hip slide and proper rotation shouldn't putt any strain on your back at all, because your left hip has to go behind you and up to maintain proper spine tilt in the swing.

OOOH, maybe i should give you the wrong advice, i see your from the that evil city up north :p

Thanks for the feedback. Because of the potential problems with back pain and that lateral slide, I ended up trying to change my swing approach and started taking lessons from a One Plane Instructor. The rotatory style that they teach is easy on the back. However, after a few months, I just couldn't get that nice crisp shot that I was starting to get with a more S&T style with the lateral movement. So, just a few weeks ago I essentially "started over" and went back to practicing little punch shots/flying wedge drill and working on the lateral hip slide. Most of the time my back was fine, but every once in a while the back strain would come back. After working with the mirror and re-watching the S&T videos I'm pretty sure I figured out why I was getting the back strain. I think it had to do with not straightening my left leg at impact with the lateral weight shift. I was doing more of a reverse C that Andy and Mike talk about being a major cause of back pain. After trying to just work on impact and getting the lateral slide coordinate with the spine tilt and straightening the legs, my back has felt perfectly fine. The best part is that I'm starting to hit nice crisp shots again. :) But this time, I'm not going to advance to a full swing until I get the basic hip slide and impact down.