Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm going to take you through a couple different variations of how to do a back extension.
Really important to do back extensions because a lot of times we tend to just focus on the
front of the body. It's what we're looking at in the mirror and, let's face it, we're
all working out so that we're happy with our appearance but we forget about all of the
postural muscles, all of the musculature that's inclusive in the core, and that's the back.
So the back extension is mostly going to mostly work the erector spinae or erector spinae
muscle group which is the long muscles that run vertically and parallel to your spine
and basically are the muscles that hold you up. It's really important to do back extension-
especially if you have a desk job and you're used to always being in this slumped over
type of posture. Because what happens is the chest gets very tight and the back muscles
get very weak and you end up always in this whether you're sitting in your desk or just
walking around. So this exercise is going to help try to bring yourself back into a
neutral posture. It's going to strengthen the muscles in between the shoulder blades-
the muscles that retract your shoulder blades. So you're gonna come down onto your stomach.
You could use a mat. And your going to take your arms out, bring your head in line with
your spine so that the most important thing is as we lift up, it's really about the spine
and not necessarily just the cervical spine, so you wanna avoid this. Keeping your eyes
just focused out in front of you. Raising your upper body and then bringing it back
down. It doesn't have to be an excessive range of motion. You really have to figure out what's
comfortable for your back. And make sure you're engaging your abdominals too. Sometimes we
think that because we're on our stomachs we can just let it all hang out but you still
want to engage your core when you're in that position. So even when you're on your belly
think about drawing your belly muscles away from your mat. As if you're trying to create
a little bit of space between your belly button and the mat underneath you. Another great
addition to this would be to focus on what I was talking about before with that scapula
retraction- you're scapula is your shoulder blades. So you're gonna lift up and pull you're
shoulder blades away from your ears so that you have a nice long neck and you're not shrugging
and then draw the shoulder blades together. I like to think of it like if you had a walnut
between your shoulder blades and you were trying to crack it with each repetition. So
really getting into those rhomboids, those midtraps- again strengthening the muscles
of you're back and stretching the muscles in the upper body that tend to be tight.