KEY AREAS: Lower Back, Glutes, Core, Abdominals
START POSITION: The pivot point (around the hip area) is key to this exercise – get that point wrong and the rest is a waste of time. Make sure that your legs are firmly anchored behind you just above the heels, tuck in your tummy and focus on tensing the lower Back, Glutes and Hams to perform the lift.
NOTES: When performed properly, the Hyperextension strengthens the lower back, glutes, core and abdominals all at once.
Common mistakes with this one are:
1) bending backwards too far at the top (over-pronation) – aomw people actually promote this form of the exercise as a Glute developer! But I’m afraid you will never convince me that bending the back that far in the wrong direction is in any way a good idea. Nope. Not buying it. There are plenty of better ways to develop your Glutes. This is, always has been and always will be, a LOWER BACK exercise!
2) Placing hands behind your head instead of crossing them over your chest. This only encourages you to bend backwards to far at the top and adds extra pressure to your lower back. Please only do this exercise with the form shown in the images here – lower and top positions.
However, I find it helps me to sink a little lower at the lower position because I like to get a total relax of the back muscles and pause for a fraction of a second before tensing upwards again. So I sort of flop a bit. I feel that this is OK provided it is done slowly, with tension force accelerating gradually on the upwards move.
A beautiful and classic old-school exercise!
