FireDragon76

Maybe true. I have actually read a few accounts of older guys that took up Natural Golf's swing and ended up with shoulder problems, even though they did find relief for their back. Of course any golf swing can put wear and tear on your body but I think its noteworthy anyways, a person might be swapping back pain for shoulder problems. My hip has been bothering me despite the down time from golf and I believe the wider stance of NG/MoeNorman doesn't help at all so when I went out to the range lately (only once a week, and I'm only chipping and pitching), I've been trying for a narrower stance and going with the vertical swing as much as possible. But I intend to try out a few lessons at the local driving range. I might also end up with senior clubs if I can't get the swing speed up as I believe the stiffer clubs may be encouraging me to muscle the swing with my arms too much. I'm also trying to come to terms with the reality I'm not young anymore and just try to have fun at golf and put my ego aside. That's hard to do because I can be single-minded and obsessive and I'm sure that's a good recipe for getting hurt. I'm also good at ignoring pain which is again not good. The pain in my shoulder has gone down, so has the clicking and popping. I'm also starting to bulk up a little in the shoulders so maybe the rehab is starting to pay off. I intend to play golf this winter (taking it easy, not hitting the range constantly of course) and put off possible surgery till the summer when golf is going to suck anyways due to the heat/humidity. I may explore alternatives like prolotherapy or PRP despite the surgeon nixing them, just because they will involve less downtime and rehab than surgery, and I have read a few studies that suggest they help with pain and range of motion with labral tears.

I went to an orthopedic surgeon and he said my labral tear is not minor, its more than just fraying of the cartilage, there's an actual flap of cartilage intruding into the shoulder, and I may have had this injury for decades but something recently made it worse. He was not optimistic about the chances for physical therapy and believed surgery was the permanent fix. He also said he didn't think my injury would stop me from playing golf, although throwing or overhead sports with the left hand were out of the question. The same is true for gymn exercises, he didn't recommend doing presses or overhead type activities. He was a bus guy in a rush between appointments and looking back I didn't get to ask him every single question. I am not sure about expectations for surgery, how long I'd be out of commission. I've heard some people regain mobility in their shoulder much sooner after the surgery, other people are basically on the couch for weeks. I'm dealing with so many overall health issues that it may not be worthwhile to do the surgery just yet, maybe in the summer. It's something I'll have to think about. I'm also curious about prolotherapy or stem-cell therapies but he said they are strictly experimental and rarely covered by insurance. I know they aren't pain-free but its less invasive than surgery. I like the idea of keeping compression on my shoulder for several hours a day to stimulate blood flow. And I intend to go back and do more physical therapy at the local PT clinic, despite the fact it'll probably leave me sore. I got a deep tissue massage at Massage Envy on Sunday and I noticed an immediate improvement in my range of motion in my left shoulder, especially being able to move my scapula more. My therapist said my rhomboid muscles on my upper back were very tight and I could really feel her breaking up the trigger points in my shoulders. A few days ago I went back to the driving range and did some chipping and pitching. I wore a shoulder compression brace. Chipping was OK but the brace seemed to make pitching harder, everything felt wrong. I am no longer as interested in all aspects of the NG/Moe Norman swing, I believe the wider stance has partly contributed to hip soreness I have been experiencing the past few weeks. I'm also thinking of taking some lessons at the driving range. If I can't get substantial improvement in my golf swing in the upcoming months I will have to quit golf, as I can't afford the wear and tear on my body from making fat shots (these really seem to irritate my wrists).

I went and got the results for the MRI and X-Ray. Not good: partially torn labrum. The rest of the joint is in good shape, no torn ligaments and no impingment. I'm going to make an appointment with my family doctor and get a referral to an orthopedist.

Who decides what's the right or wrong things? The fundamentals one person focuses on may be totally different than another person. I'd consider myself fortunate if I got to play any golf before the end of the year. "Progress" is a luxury at this point.

I have no plans to go to a golf professional for lessons. I believe the gymn was mostly responsible for the injury, not golf. Once I get rehabilitated my swing will probably improve. I was never pushing myself that hard at the driving range, certainly golf wasn't helping my shoulder but I doubt it was the main factor. Probably, my shoulder was unstable and had issues with range of motion, and trying to do pull ups and pressing type excercises injured the shoulder. I've read that rows are much better for people with unstable shoulders, usually the pectoral muscles and tendons are too tight and the detloids too weak. So I plan to work on that. My shoulder took a turn for the worst yesterday after physical therapy, got swollen shoulder and much less range of motion, I went to an urgent care center this morning after a having trouble sleeping due to pain, and they put me in a sling and gave me a prescription for oxycodone and an MRI. I was hoping just to get a corticosteroid injection in the shoulder but I guess the doctor wants the shoulder looked at first. My guess is I got bursitis in the shoulder and its gotten worse due to physical therapy. So I'm not going to be doing much golf for a while. I went ahead and cancelled physical therapy for the moment. Once the swelling goes down and I get some answers I plan to work with a sports chiropractor or massage therapist. I'm not impressed at all with the PT I did at the clinic, my shoulder kept hurting more and more and they ignored my complaints. I really have to have a good relationship with any therapist. I have issues because I have autism and trouble communicating nonverbal stuff. I'll say I'm hurting but sometimes my face and body language don't convey pain very well and I'm not very good for standing up for myself, I prefer to just avoid conflict.

It's possible my doctor was thinking of MR-arthrograms, where x-rays or fluoroscopes are also used to guide some of the procedure to get the contrast dye into the joint. Useless medical procedures are another risk from MRI's, albeit indirectly. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor by having an elective MRI. Nevermind that I was asymptomatic and a neurosurgeon later told me not to worry about it. We just monitored it for a few years and noticed no change, so he told me it probably wasn't a tumor, just unusual brain anatomy. It turns out I've read in a few books since that its common to find random oddities through MRI, and that even relatively safe medical scans expose a person to potentially unnecessary medical procedures. We live in a data driven world but there's a fine line between getting more relevant information and being drowned in misleading data, and MRI's aren't immune from leading medical staff down rabbit holes. I wouldn't mind honestly getting the arthrogram, even though it involves x-rays and sticking a big needled into the shoulder joint... as the shoulder soreness is the worst pain I've had in my upper body in a long time and I'm scared of that kind of pain and the "unknown" factor hiding behind it. But I've learned to trust my doctors judgment. He's being conservative but I know from experience that will lead to fewer headaches overall.

Physical therapy is intense, lots of arm-cycling and rowing, and I haven't really noticed a lot of improvements in range of motion yet. More soreness, some pain, and the feeling of swelling is no better on the third day. I went to my doctor to just get an update and double-check. He said he thinks its unlikely anything is torn in my shoulder and MRI would not be worth the risks. Most likely what's causing the clicking and popping is inflammation in the shoulder. He also thinks it might be a good idea if I got deep tissue massage because there's probably scar tissue in my shoulder joint that exercise is irritating. My shoulder is also probably somewhat unstable and lacks muscular development in the right places. He's given me no real restrictions on playing golf except to take it easy at least until the shoulder gets stronger. I've been using muscle rubs like Tiger Balm or Chinese linaments. They seem to help the shoulder relax and stretch better but sometimes seem to make the inflammation worse and now I'm noticing pain more around the bursa in my shoulder. I've avoided using ice for the most part but yesterday the soreness was bad enough I used it briefly. NSAID's are out of the question because of the stomach risks (I just got over moderate gastritis). TENS is my main method of pain relief and I take some CBD oil at night to help dull the pain a bit. I was given a TENS unit years ago when undergoing pelvic rehab, the physical therapist thought it might help with fibromyalgia. Since fibro for me involves so many different parts of the body hurting all at once, it was never that useful during flare-ups. But it's finally gotten a lot of use on my shoulder, and it works very well... it reminds me a lot of the sort of pain relief you can get with acupuncture. Its been weeks since I hit a golf ball and I intend to go back to the driving range and do some pitching and chipping. I miss it a lot and my body felt better overall staying much more physically active. I believe based on my experiences at the PT and gymn that my problem was I was focused on doing too much low-rep, high effort exercise. I don't have the necessary muscular endurance to do that yet. Doing 22 reps in some of the PT excercises makes the whole joint feel stronger, and its probably the direction I need to go.

I've been trying to become an expert on the shoulder in the past week, unlike other body parts its something I never gave much thought to. My arm pops and clicks as it moves up and down to the side, it only feels completely stable over my head or hanging down at my side, or if I bring it up and down in front or behind me. It could be a labral tear ,which would suck but I don't seem to have all the other symptoms consistently. I've never had my arm dislocated. Another possibility is tendonitis or impingement, maybe scar tissue or bone spurs. A good follow through feels difficult to do in the golf swing, when I try lifting the club up it just feels so heavy like I don't have complete control over the golf swing. Follow through is important because its the point the club decelerates and this actually makes it easier on your shoulder long term. Otherwise you end up with the same issues baseball pitchers have, where all the energy of their arm swing can jerk on their shoulder, instead of being more circular. A lot of stuff about the golf swing is starting to click biomechanically- the arms and shoulders power the swing but the body rotation creates space for the swing to make it more rotational and therefore safer. And its not really hitting the ball, it's swinging through the ball. Otherwise you are going to have tempo problems that are probably going to ratchet up the risk because power and effort are going to be in all the wrong places. I'm also suspicious of the gymn more than the golf swing. I also have been playing Nintendo Wii some, so that could do it too (needless to say I'm not playing Wii right now, and may even sell it off and just stick with my other game console that uses a traditional gamepad). In the gymn I tried doing a pull up a few times (like 3 times), nothing too extreme but I may have strained my shoulder trying to do it. So perhaps I am looking more at an overuse injury, because it didn't initially hurt, its more like a bunch of things happening at once. Not one single thing really, I never recall really going over the top crazy. The shoulder stretching my physical therapist gave me just doesn't seem to be improving things, so I will have a talk with her and maybe ask my doctor about imaging the shoulder to see what's going on... if they both think that's a good idea. Hitting fat shots has been a problem and I know that can hurt the wrist but I don't know about further up the arm, like the shoulder- I suppose its a possibility. Fat shots are something I struggle with from time to time, although doing the pitching yesterday I only got slightly fat shots, and only when not hitting off a tee.

I definitely plan on looking elsewhere if I don't get improvement. The physical therapist I used to go to dropped my insurance. They were great, very knowledgeable and skilled (they got me into foam rolling which really helped my lower body). The place I go to now is a different outfit, I'll have to see how it goes. I never really realized how much I favored that shoulder until I took up golf. I wouldn't be surprised if I had some scar tissue in my left shoulder and that's causing problems. That can be broken up with really deep massage. I did a little bit of pitching and chipping yesterday (only hitting off tees). I have some soreness in my deltoid near the rotator cuff and my shoulder still clicks if I lift my arm up to the side over my shoulder, but otherwise my shoulder seems to be doing better- everything is starting to feel stronger overall. Mostly I'm alternating using a heating pad with compression and Tiger Balm. Aside from the chipping and pitching, I don't think I'll be doing any golfing until I get some better news. But complete disuse doesn't seem to help either, I just feel stiffer afterwards

The physical therapist said I have some problems with range of motion in my shoulder and I probably have tendonitis too. I got some exercises to do and will meet with them twice a week for a while. My wrist and elbow measurements are "medium" frame but my legs are shorter so that's always going to make me seem to be heavier for my height.

I'd like to gain muscle mass, not necessarily gain weight in general- my weight is already respectable as is. I'm 5'8 and usually wear medium shirts, BTW. At one time I weighed 200 lbs, but that was many years ago. I wasn't a fat kid- I was not a traditional athlete but I was very physically active (karate, riding bikes, in my teenage years I walked everywhere as I lived in Europe), I just got fat in my early 20's due to medical problems. I've been less than 185 for the past ten years. My blood pressure and cholesterol are normal. In the past year and a half I've had periods where I was basically on a very restrictive diet. Only eating corn grits, crean of rice, bananas, and coconut oil, because that's all my stomach could tolerate. And when I could eat meat, I ate very small amounts. I had gastritis and food intolerances. Now the gastritis has gone away and I can eat normal amounts of food, but maybe that weird diet took its toll on my body. The food intolerances have not gone away, so I have to be picky in what I eat. I got an appointment with a physical therapist for tomorrow afternoon. I expect they'll do some range of motion tests. I've gone through this about 6 months ago with a therapist working on my lower body and core, but since I didn't complain about upper body issues they were never checked out.

Well, I guess I should put "brutish" in quotes, as its not necessarily something I agree with. But I still do feel the class-based prejudices play into the perception that golf is different fundamentally from other sports, that it doesn't have the same sort of basic prerequisites to play well as other sports, such as baseball.

Cutting down a club to practice indoors sounds like a good idea. At the range all I really have is feel, and clearly my feel is off. I bought a 1lb dumbbell and tried out a few shoulder exercises and my shoulder feels a lot weaker than I realized. I think I'm going to stick to chipping and putting for a few days, at least until I can get to a physical therapist. I may have something more serious going on in my shoulder and/or my shoulder has just weakened due to non-use. When I was a teenager I mysteriously injured my shoulder, just woke up one morning with severe pain and I couldn't lift up my arm above my head, the doctor sent me home with just a prescription for ice and tylenol. All I had been doing was playing guitar for a year, last time I checked that wasn't listed as a high risk activity. Its too bad as I picked up a used strong lofted 3 wood and had wanted to try that out. But I'm afraid to mess up my shoulder. Another problem I am having... I'm losing weight despite eating more. I weigh 165 now, which is a normal weight for me but it feels like all I do now is eat. I'd like to put on some muscle mass, particularly my upper body . Walking to the driving range and hitting balls for a few hours burns lots of calories.

Blame the mystique of Golf: country club culture, wealthy Americans that wanted to pretend that Golf was different than other, brutish sports like boxing or baseball that a gentleman would never engage in. The focus on mechanics obscures the athleticism of the golf swing. Especially because so much of the mechanics of the golf swing are dependent on a persons physical ability, in some cases physical abilities that may be extraordinary.

I looked over the swing videos and they aren't worth posting. The posture is closer to the ball and the arms lower, but my left elbow keeps folding and the club goes too far over my head and not far away enough from my body on the backswing. I didn't record yesterday's driving range session. My doctor looked at my shoulder and back today and he thinks physical therapy is a good idea, so he wrote a prescription and gave me a list of physical therapists.

I decided I need to experiment with balls first before I really stick with one brand or the other. My preference at the moment is for distance balls, though, so I go with whatever is cheap, so I got a bag of used balls, many of which are in playable condition and some I just save for chipping practice. Wilston Staff Fifties, Top Flite XL's, Pinnacle Gold, Noodle Long and Soft. I also have some Nitro Tour Distance balls that are new.

I am familiar with the general dress codes of golf. I have a more specific question, though, is it usual for shirts to be tucked in? Can you get in trouble on courses by leaving shirts untucked?

I have some more recent swing videos I have not uploaded yet and I hope to take more soon. Yesterday me and my dad went to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls. He didn't do so well with my clubs, I was swinging a lot more consistently. A few weeks ago it was completely reversed. He wanted to experiment with my chipping wedge, and he used a really odd technique, lots of wrist action, but it worked . I just prefer to swing it with a long putting stroke with very little wrist action. My chipping was not so great either but that's probably due to being worn out from hitting 40 balls and it being unusually hot out. The new swing (vertical swing- it turns out Dave Seeman is doing the same swing style as Don Trahan) seems to produce less body strain, but that is just my impression so far. I can get some wild hooks with it, but mostly I get straight shots or slight draws. The distance seems better too. Slightly topping the ball is still an issue with about a quarter of my swings, and I whiffed twice yesterday (which I think is due to losing depth perception and moving my head). I'm going to work on more drills to keep my head steady. I'd also like to continue to improve my tempo and the best way to do that would be to watch more video of myself. I watched a youtube video of Moe Norman giving a demo in 2001 where he talks about discovering something new... he does a few swings with a narrower stance and a more arm driven swing. But with his woods, he's still standing farther away from the ball. He talks about his accuracy being the same but his distance improving. From reading a biography about Moe, it seems he was experimenting with the swing his entire life.

I'd like to be able to get a little better than double bogey on average, that's my goal. I don't see myself playing 18 hole rounds... so probably I should be aiming for a score below 50. I believe I can do that in a year, depending on how much I can play this winter. I also would like to get a USGA handicap, but I'm not sure it can be done only playing 9 holes. I'd be curious to know.

I would use a chipping wedge. Especially if you are new to golf, they are easy to use. An iron, pitching wedge or sand wedge with a short putting stroke would also work, but I think the chipper works better because it's actually designed for this type of stroke, and typically they are weighted and oversized to be more forgiving than a sand wedge (which is designed to blast balls up out of bunkers). From deeper rough, I would go with the sand wedge and try to bump it over the rough (you don't really consciously do this, it will just do it on its own, you don't want to be trying to scoop up the ball or anything like that, just hit it normally with a short stroke). Go to a chipping green and just get a feel for it, experimenting with having the ball in different places in your stance- your brain will subconsciously figure a lot of it out with practice. Its just my guess but flop shots probably require the more expensive balls that can backspin a lot. From what I've read flop shots are so tricky they are not worth learning for most amateur golfers. So, I'm just sticking with using distance and soft distance balls and learning to use all that roll.

140-150 sounds about right, and I've had others tell me that's about how far I'm hitting. I need to get that consistency every day, though. I'm using a gadget called a SyncaSwing to record my swing speed. It grips onto the shaft of the club. It also records information about tempo. Half the time I can't get it to work, though- I believe it has a bad internal battery contact. So I take a screwdriver and end up fiddling with it. I don't use it all the time, just a few times to chart my progress. My swing speed used to be 55-60 mph.

Measure? No. I could guess, but it's just a guess. Yesterday I believe I was hitting 8/10 shots fairly well, but when they were bad, they were very bad. Off the grass stuff I practice is just setup with a club in front of a mirror and maybe a few drills where I practice a short takeaway. No full swings even in slow motion, my apartment is too small. I do practice putting and a little chipping in the hallway using soft practice balls and a basket. Most of the time I'm walking down to the driving range which is about 3/4 a mile away and I only carry one club, usually my chipping wedge and I borrow whatever else they have on hand. Usually I borrow an old steel driver or a 5 iron. I don't know the exact distance I'm hitting, right now I'm more focused on getting what feels like good distance and trying to minimize the misses. I believe the secret is to not get discouraged and to not try to hit too hard to get the distance. Yesterday I was really focused on easy swings, and at first they didn't go very far, but with each swing they started going longer and longer as I grooved the swings. Practicing in front of a camera seems difficult. Most of the time I've tried to record my swing, things get worse. I think I'm going to add in some daily tempo training, just go outside my apartment into the grass and swing a golf club, focusing on getting a smooth swing. My goal is to get my backswing slower and my swing speed up. Right now its around 75mph with a 5 iron. I got some things called flatballs, they are thin little disks, supposed to help you learn to not to make fat or thin shots. I've only used them a few times. They skim around like hockey pucks on short grass. Probably better for indoor use, if I had the space. At a driving range, I use them around the space on the chipping green.

Today I worked on using a golf club grip next to my head during the swing to try to reduce head movement- I did that for about eight or ten swings into a ball. At first it threw off my swing a lot. I felt like I was twisting up a bit more. The past two days I've been trying out a new swing to see how it felt. Dave Seeman has a youtube channel with a lot of free advice, and the swing looked easy, not too much twisting. He also keeps it simple and some of the things he says make really good swing thoughts. I seemed to be hitting better today than I usually do, the shots were fairly straight for the most part. I did have some trouble topping the ball when hitting off the ground. One thing that really helped when I was swinging clubs was to visualize the swing path, that helped me move between clubs: yesterday I had a horrible time starting out on a pitching wedge and going to a driver. I also tried to be more conscious of swinging through the ball with an easy swing and getting my arms away from my body and making a better follow-through. Starting out at the chipping green also seemed to help, as well as taking breaks after hitting a few balls (as I've read that the muscle fibers involved in the golf swing get tired very quickly). Nevertheless, after hitting a bucket of 70 balls my body was left achy, though it felt nice to hit with the range's graphite shafted, oversized 5 iron- much less vibration and I could just feel the clubhead easier than swinging with a heavy steel shaft.

I decided tonight I'm going to go get lessons from a pro, I've reached a point I don't think I can keeping working at this on my own. It might be a waste of money but its starting to feel like just going to a driving range and beating on golf balls isn't leading my swing to improving fast enough to justify the expense. I live in apartment and I can't practice indoors and I don't have any friends that play golf, either... so I think lessons are the way to go (I miss when I could just go out into my back yard and hit on a swing trainer whenever I felt lie it). The local driving range has a pro who gives lessons for 60 dollars and while that is a lot of money, it's probably just a cost I have to lump if I want to play golf. Plus, interacting with a pro face to face will be a good way to look at my physical limitations, and if he or she is good good, they can work with them. I also plan to schedule a check up with my doctor and ask for a physical therapist's referral to check me over. Since I started playing golf I've been dealing with back pain and my shoulders have been popping and clicking more so it would probably be a good idea to have medical advice before I mess something up. I would still be interested in learning the Moe Norman swing but the Orlando Graves Academy only offers lessons as part of a two day package costing 600 dollars, which seems a bit steep to me. What do you think? I have an older book by Natural Golf but the swing has been tweaked since the book was written. I've tried to implement the swing and I think I have parts of it but something is blocking my progress. It could just be that apartment living doesn't agree with being a good golfer, I'm sure if I had a room big enough to practice in front of a mirror, it would be easier. Feeling isn't reality and part of the problem is translating what I see and read into stuff I do. Or, it could be there is something wrong with my shoulders, or maybe I just need to do more drills with a coach. I appreciate the advice that has been given. I'm an adult living with autism and you have to understanding I don't think the way you do and I understand even less of what is called the meta-language of neurotyical communication. The assumptions about the unwrittens rules of language and etiquette that most "ordinary" people take for granted. I've always felt I was born on the wrong planet; I'm a Vulcan trapped in a human body, and I question everything, that's just what I do (I don't go to church anymore either, just because I can't take things at face value and go with the flow... but that's another topic altogether. Basically, I'm not a joiner and I resist herds). For many years I lived a solitary existence with myself but that's just part of being autistic (the only time I really felt bad about it were the few times people pressured me to be otherwise), so I don't completely understand the unwritten rules about how you all think or your expectations about what is normal. I'm not a dick to be around in real life, though sometimes conversations can be awkward.