Pain turning the left shoulder down

[bunkerputt]

Question for the Golf Evolution guys.  I've always had a somewhat flat shoulder turn.  I think this started for two reasons:

1.  Early on, I bought into the Jim McLean X-factor hype where you want to create torque.  It felt like I could get more "torque" in my left side if I was relatively flat and stretched into my right side on my backswing.

2.  Even earlier on, when I first started playing, I had a pretty bad reverse pivot, didn't use my legs and overswung pretty much every swing.  This created a lot of chronic pain in the left side of my back.

This worked to push me towards a kind of "reverse K" type of swing.  Today, at the range, I worked on trying to stay centered and turn my left shoulder down more underneath my chin.  Even with improved lower body motion and hip action compared with 5 years ago, I have a little pain in the left side of my middle back at the base of my rib cage.  It's basically a pain that makes me never want to tilt to the left in any way.  Tilting right is fine.  I haven't felt that particular pain in about 5 years, even with an aggressive workout schedule, so I know it's related to that particular "turning down" motion that creates a leftward tilt on my backswing.  I remember what reverse pivot is, I'm definitely still translating slightly to the right on my backswing, but it is very much diminished.  I'm pretty sure I'm not reverse pivoting, just maintaining a fairly vertical spine on the backswing.  Is this a common problem with your students or with stack and tilters in general, and if so, is there a typical fault that accompanies to produce the pain?

[iacas]

I can't say we've ever had anyone describe any pain there.

Can you stand up and "tilt to the left"? As in just standing there, arms at your sides, and tilting to the left? Image 3 below.

[bunkerputt]

I can do that and barely touch the very top of my left knee cap.  That's about as far as I can go.  Still a little tender from yesterday, but doesn't hurt quite as bad.  I only hit 40 balls.

[bunkerputt]

This may be a flexibility problem.  I suspect my upper thoracic spine can't rotate/tilt as much because the lats and shoulders are too tight.  The middle/lower thoracic vertebrae then carry the brunt of the motion and muscles engage to prevent injury.  I can sort of get into a left shoulder down but still the tight left side feeling that I had with a flat shoulder plane, but it's a little tight.  I'll take a camera to the range today and post some video of the motion I'm trying to do.

[bunkerputt]

After another week or so of working on this motion, I can say this about it.  It's here to stay for sure, and if you get your hips forward enough on the downswing to take out some of the tilt, any pain you have in unwinding goes away.

Some thoughts on this move...  I historically (continuing in the X-factor torquey way of thinking) tried to create as much stretch in my left side at the top of the backswing as I possibly could and then just move my hips hard left from there.  The basic problem was that way of thinking was, regardless of whether I "turned" my hips from the top, or "slid" my hips from the top, the left side tension in absence of a little spine tilt, created too much connectedness between my lower body and upper body in the transition.  Since this was always what I thought I was supposed to be doing (creating and preserving "X-factor"), I never saw this as a problem.  Since my body was already torqued to the max any hip rotation whatsoever pulled my left shoulder back off the target line.  This is because, in a misguided effort to maintain the stretch, the left shoulder moved around and across the target line instead of down and along the target line.  The complimentary response on the downswing, rather than being down and along the target line was more up and to the left, opening up too quickly without the necessary lateral left shoulder movement first.  Adding in a little bit of tilt, I've found, actually reduces some of the left side tension at the top of the backswing.  Far from being a reverse pivot fault, this, I believe is actually necessary.  For one, it allows the lower body and upper torso to work somewhat independently during the transition.  With a little slack, the lower body can move into a position to hit without throwing the left shoulder off line prematurely.  The lower body move works to take out some of the slack and get the body into a position so the pivot can apply power to the torso.  Two, with the shoulders working in more of a "down and up" way rather than in a horizontal, spinny way, center face contact is now no longer an issue.  I came to realize this was happening when I started hitting a lot of chip shots off the toe.  I just couldn't figure out why, on such a short swing, I would ever hit anything off the toe.  Once I started, even on small chip shots, trying to work the left shoulder down ward towards the right toe line, it's almost impossible (feels that way anyway) for me to hit anything but the center of the face.

[saevel25]

Question, does it bother you when your just sitting around, or if you move your head or shoulders. If you place your hands infront of you, like your pushing somethign away, so your pulling your shoulder blades apart. Is there pain there. If you can define the motions that cause discomfort you can isolate which muscle it is. Saying its mid back doesn't help much. You say it hurts when you bend left or wright, thats why i think its the lat muscle.

If its towards the center of the back more, near the spine it might be the Rhomdoids or the Trapezius. Those are my arch nemisis. Usually i get those from sleeping on my couch, but that damn couch is so comfy. That bothers me when i move my shoulders.