A clinical review reports benefits from trunk and leg strengthening and outlines a gradual golf return. Here is the evidence and its limits for golfers over 40.
Orthopedic spine surgeon Joshua H. Abrams’s article “Golfers and Back Pain: Returning to Your Game” was published October 26, 2026. It puts trunk stabilization and lower-extremity strengthening alongside a gradual return to golf.
The article reports a trial that favored this combined strength approach over general swing exercises and stretching for reducing pain and disability. Its broader message is about rebuilding participation rather than relying on stretching or heading straight back to full rounds.
For experienced recreational golfers, that is a useful distinction. The discussion is not simply about finding another stretch. It is about how strength work and the amount of golf played fit into the same return plan.
According to Abrams’s review, a randomized trial involved amateur golfers with nonspecific low-back pain. Trunk stabilization plus lower-extremity strengthening produced greater reductions in pain and disability than general swing exercises and stretching.
The comparison matters. The reported benefit came from a program that combined trunk work with leg strengthening. It was not a test of a single exercise against every other way of managing back pain.
A secondary account of the research identifies a 2026 paper by Kang and colleagues in the Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation. It describes a Korean trial of 30 amateur golfers comparing six weeks of trunk stabilization and leg strengthening with swing practice and stretching.
Pain and disability were the reported outcomes. Those are relevant to returning to an activity that has become uncomfortable or difficult. They should not be recast as evidence of greater clubhead speed or better scoring.
The review does not provide outcome scores or statistical results. It also does not attach a specific reference to its trial claim. The trial’s primary abstract and full text were not available for independent checking, so the exact size of the benefit and the full methods remain unconfirmed.
The participants described were amateur golfers with nonspecific low-back pain. The accessible accounts do not establish a result specifically for golfers over 40 or for every back diagnosis. A combined-program comparison also cannot separate the contribution of trunk work from leg strengthening.
Nor does this comparison establish that stretching is harmful or that strength work should replace mobility work. Abrams’s article is educational material from a spine-care provider and includes an invitation to seek care. It is not an independent clinical guideline or an individual assessment.
For Golfergy’s over-40 audience, the useful translation is to give strength work a place in the return-to-golf conversation. That fits our focus on practical, research-led guidance for playing longer. It does not turn the reported trial into a ready-made rehabilitation plan.
Our discussion of building a strength base after 40 provides a broader place to think about strength within golf. Here, the narrower point is its role alongside a gradual return after back pain.
Abrams’s article proposes a staged return rather than an immediate jump to full play. It describes moving from pitch-and-putt to a few holes and then nine holes. Limited short-iron range work follows before full rounds and range sessions.
That sequence is the author’s clinical guidance. The available accounts do not establish that this precise progression was tested in the randomized trial. It is best read as an example to discuss with a qualified clinician rather than a schedule to copy.
The review also advises monitoring symptoms during play and the following morning. It recommends building volume before speed. In plain language, its proposed order is to rebuild the amount of golf before chasing faster swings.
This connects the strength discussion to recognizable parts of the game. Short-game practice, partial rounds and full rounds are different stages of participation in the author’s plan. Strength work is presented alongside those stages rather than as a separate task with no link to returning to the course.
For a personal return plan, the review offers useful topics for a clinical conversation:
These are discussion points rather than self-clearance tests. Golfergy’s guide to thinking through golf after time away addresses the broader return-to-play theme.
Abrams’s examples include planks, bridges and bird dogs for trunk stabilization. The article also includes glute and hip strengthening, plus hip and spine stretches.
That mix explains the review’s practical emphasis. It describes more than stretching alone, but stretching remains part of the approach. The useful shift is toward a broader plan rather than a contest between strength and flexibility.
An exercise name is not enough to select a rehabilitation routine. Decisions about which movements fit a golfer’s symptoms belong with qualified care. The review’s examples provide language for that conversation without supplying an individual prescription.
The article identifies symptoms that warrant professional evaluation. These include pain traveling down the leg with numbness, tingling or weakness. It also lists worsening symptoms and pain at rest or at night.
Bowel or bladder changes are another reason the article gives for seeking evaluation. These signs belong in a medical conversation rather than an experiment with a different stretch or swing adjustment.
For a golfer deciding what persistent discomfort means, the distinction is straightforward: general education and personal assessment serve different purposes. Our article on recognizing when golf pain needs clinical guidance addresses that boundary.
The documented takeaway is measured but useful. Abrams’s review reports a trial favoring combined trunk stabilization and leg strengthening for pain and disability. His return-to-golf guidance places strength work beside gradual increases in play and attention to symptoms.
For recreational golfers over 40, the practical message is to discuss rebuilding strength and golf participation together. Stretching alone is not the whole strategy described in the review.
The available accounts leave longer-term outcomes after regular play resumes unresolved. For now, the grounded approach is a coordinated return plan shaped by qualified assessment, not a single exercise or an immediate return to full-volume golf.
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