Heal Your Back - and Your Golf Game
by Dr. Lenny Izzo • Huntington, NY

At the end of last season I went out for a round of golf at a local public course. It was a perfect fall Sunday afternoon and the temperature was in the high 50s.

Most of the leaves had fallen off the trees and the sky was a beautiful royal blue. I was surprised to walk onto the first tee and see only one other weekend warrior standing there. The Jet game was almost over and the Giants were coming on next, which explained why the fairways were so lonely on such a perfect golf day.

I love this moment of standing on the first tee. Paired with that one other golfer, we introduced ourselves and I began to do my warm up routine. Even though I had just hit a small bucket of balls and was fairly warm, my body was transitioning from practice to real play. I always add a few more stretches for my lower trunk muscles before I take out the “big dog.” I noticed that the gentleman that I was teamed up with was not even taking a practice swing; he was standing there doing some slow motion twisting of his upper body onto his lower torso. Figuring he was all set to go, I offered him the honor to split the fairway with his first tee shot.

As he was pulling his oversized driver from his bag, he looked as though he was in pain. I also noticed that as he took his set up, his left foot was virtually pointing towards the flag some 395 yards straight ahead. Many of us amateurs will flare the front foot in order to make better contact because some of us don’t have the flexibility to finish the swing, particularly when there is a lower back problem. However this was not just a flare of the foot, his entire lower body was pointing towards the fairway. He went into his back-swing, and I was surprised to see that he made decent contact and hit the drive about 200 yards. He had a reason for altering his mechanics.

As we played through the round, it became obvious that this determined golfer not only had a problem with mechanics, but had adapted his extremely awkward swing to accommodate a serious lower back problem. Walking the course, his story began to unfold. It was a familiar one. Five years earlier he had seriously hurt his lower back while lifting a bag of peat moss. He tried all the conventional treatments and refused surgery for what was then diagnosed as two herniated disc in his lumbar spine.

Although often overlooked, your back is one of the most important components of the game. Think about trying to play with a club that has a broken or bent shaft; it just won’t give you the performance it should. How many golfers would take to the fairways with broken or faulty clubs? Why would you play with any faulty equipment at all? Just as there is wonderful break-through technology to improve the performance of the equipment in the bag, there is now the technology available to improve the equipment carrying the bag--you! The DRX9000 Spinal Decompression is a non-surgical approach to healing back pain. This spinal decompression machine is designed to specifically target and treat the source of your disc related back pain.

Frank Nobilo was one of the top professional golfers in the world for 23 years, until debilitating back pain forced him out of the game. Frank reached out to the top experts in the country, eventually leading him to Spinal Decompression. After only a short while, with the help of the spinal decompression treatments, Frank has returned to his active lifestyle and to the game of golf. Since his return to the Tour, now as a commentator, he has seen more and more Pro golfers using the DRX; from 50+ year-olds getting back into shape for the tour, to perfectly healthy 30 year-olds using it to stay healthy.

Spinal Decompression, along with sound clinical nutrition and golf specific exercise is very effective in treating the “whole person” and returning patients BACK to playing golf.

Dr. Lenny Izzo has been in practice since 1980. He teaches and lectures on the subject of nutritional psychology, understanding the “issues in the tissues” and has made numerous appearances on radio and television. Dr. Izzo is Director of “Long Island Center for Spinal Decompression” located in Huntington, New York – a facility that houses the DRX 9000 TM. The DRX is the only system with FDA 510 K clearance for True Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression. Call Dr. Izzo at 631-547-5433 or visit his web site at www.LIDRX9000.com.