The Little Arched Board I Use After Every Round

I am sixty-seven years old and I walk three rounds of golf a week, which my lower back never formally agreed to. The stiffness started around the time I turned sixty. Nothing dramatic. Just an ache that showed up while I was lacing my shoes on the first tee, and again the next morning, like somebody had packed wet sand between two of my vertebrae overnight.

I am not a doctor and I am not going to write like one. My doctor said my back is ordinary wear and muscle tightness rather than a disc problem, and told me to stay active, warm up properly and keep strengthening my core. My physical therapist gave me a floor routine about three years ago. What I can actually tell you about is the MINOLL back stretcher I bought in early October of this year, and the honest version of what it did and did not do for me.

Before the board, my after-round routine was the floor. Lie on the carpet in the living room, knees bent, feet flat, let everything settle for a few minutes, then work through the stretches my physical therapist gave me. It helped and I still do it. But there was a spot in my lower back that the floor never reached. You cannot push your own back into an arch from the outside. That is the whole reason I went looking.

The MINOLL is an arched board with several levels of adjustment. It weighs about two pounds, which matters more every year when you are picking something up off a carpet. I started on the lowest setting, because a mechanic does not lead with the biggest hammer. You check the manual, you start gentle, you watch what the machine does.

The first week I used it three minutes at a time on the living room carpet after a round, and I did not enjoy it. The arch is firm and the first minute is a negotiation. By the second week I had moved up to the middle level and I have stayed there. The listing says five to ten minutes twice a day. I do three to five minutes, once, usually right after golf and sometimes in the evening if I have been sitting too long. Carol has pointed out, more than once, that I am not much for following instructions.

The floor routine got me moving. The board got me to the spot I could not reach on my own.

What did it change? I am not going to tell you it fixed anything. My back is still my back. What changed is the first tee. Back in October I was taking three or four loose swings before I felt willing to hit a ball, and I was finishing the back nine with a hand pressed into my hip. Five weeks in, the morning-after ache is shorter. Instead of most of Sunday it is maybe an hour. That is my report, from my body, and your mileage will be different.

There is a version of this where you get on the thing, feel something pop, and walk away cured. That was not my experience and I would be careful about chasing it. When I get on I set my shoulders back over the arch, breathe out, and let my spine settle into the curve. If I feel anything sharp, I get off. If it runs down my leg, I get off and I call my doctor. That rule came from my physical therapist. It did not come from me and it did not come from the box.

Two things I would tell a friend before he buys one. First, the middle setting is not the timid setting and there is no prize for working up to the top level. Second, this is a five-minute habit, not a twenty-minute one. I tried twenty minutes once, out of some misplaced sense of doing it properly, and I was sore for two days in a way that helped nobody.

The MINOLL slides under the edge of the recliner and stays there. Carol steps over it. Tank, our four-year-old Boston terrier, has decided it is furniture. It stays home, because this is a thing I do after a round in my own living room, not a thing I do in a parking lot. The parking lot is for the warm-up swings.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that a stiff back at sixty-seven is a management problem, not a one-purchase problem. The MINOLL board is one of five things in my routine. I take slow swings before the first tee. I wear a brace on cold mornings and loosen it between shots. I sit with a heating pad in the recliner after a round in the colder months. I push a cart instead of carrying a stand bag on one shoulder, which I did for twelve years and should have quit sooner. And I get on the board for a few minutes when I get home. Take away any one of those and I am worse off. Take away the board and the floor routine stops covering the same ground.

I would also tell you to be honest with yourself about what you are feeling. If the pain is sharp, if it runs down a leg, if it does not settle after a couple of weeks, skip the board and go see a doctor. That is not me hedging. That is the advice I was given and the advice I would pass on. If it is the ordinary stiffness a lot of us walk into in our sixties, and you have already been told to stay active and keep moving, then a firm arch you lie on for a few minutes is a reasonable thing to try. It is simple, it takes five minutes, and it has earned its spot under my recliner.