Back Extensions: The Backbender’s Broccoli

Back Extensions: The Backbender’s Broccoli

Whether you are a seasoned yogi, novice contortionist, or just plain working on your back flexibility, back extensions are arguably the best conditioning exercise you can possibly do for your back flexibility. I like to call them a “broccoli” exercise - they’re part of a healthy “diet” of backbending training and even if you don’t enjoy them, you should absolutely be doing them (although hopefully you enjoy eating your vegetables and you enjoy your backbending conditioning!).

Back extensions are so great because they work on your active back flexibility, meaning you’re engaging and strengthening your muscles while you are also getting a stretch, which over time leads to more flexibility gains and safer backbends because your muscles are strong enough to support you in deeper and deeper positions. All good things!

Below are some of my favorite variations of back extensions (loosely ordered from “beginner-friendly” to “more advanced.”

Locust Back Extensions

1. Start lying on your belly, forehead on the floor, arms by your sides, feet about hip width apart

2. Engage your abs by sucking your belly button in towards your spine

3. Keeping your feet on the floor, start to lift your chest and head off the ground, keeping hands reaching back towards your feet. Try to keep your neck in a “neutral” position by continuing to look at the floor (as opposed to lifting the head to look forwards, which will arch your neck). By keeping your feet down and neck neutral, you’ll be helping make sure you are strengthening your lower back, and not let your glutes and traps tack over the movement

4. Slowly lower your chest back down with control. That’s 1 rep. Repeat for 8-12 reps.

There are a lot of other different arm variations you can do these to make them harder as you get stronger (ex. hands behind your head, elbows out to the side), but for beginners I really like keeping hands reaching back towards your feet to help shift your weight back and make them a smidge easier.

Feet-Anchored Back Extensions

These are just like the locust back extensions (above), but you can anchor your feet under a couch, bed, or partner so you can lift your chest higher, without lifting your feet off of the ground. The bottom of a couch is usually a good (low) height for this, or better yet, have a partner sit on your calves/ankles to weigh down your feet. Underneath a bed can work too, but you may need to place a pillow (or two) between your feet and the bottom of the bed frame to keep them from lifting more than an inch.

1. Start lying on your belly, face down, with arms extended by your sides, and feet under some sort of support/weight (bottom of your couch, under your bed frame, have someone sit on them etc.)

2. Engage your abs first (we always engage our abs before backbending!) by pulling your belly button in towards your spine

3. Start lifting your head and chest off of the ground, using your feet to push into your support resistance to help lift your torso even higher.

4. Slowly lower back down with control (don’t just “relax” and flop to the floor - you should still be using your muscles on the eccentric lowering phase). Repeat for 5-12 reps.

Because you’re feet are anchored and you get to use your glutes more in this exercise, this is one where you can start to experiment with different arm variations to make them harder:

• Crossing hands behind your lower back

• Placing hands behind your head

• Reaching straight arms forwards (I’d consider this one more “advanced” - it’s definitely hard!)

Robot Arm Elbow Squeeze

1. Start lying on your belly, face down, abs engaged (just like all the other back extension drills), but this time have your elbows out to the side in a “robot arm” (aka “cactus arms”) shape

2. Keeping feet on the floor, lift your chest as high as you can, feeling a squeeze in your low back

3. Once your torso is lifted, squeeze your elbows together towards your butt and see if you can get a little extra lift/height

4. Slowly lower with control. That’s one rep. Repeat 8-12 times

Want to make it harder? Hold the elbow squeeze (chest lifted as high as you can) for a second or two before lowering back down to the ground.

Big Bird Flaps

1. Same start as above variations (belly down, face down, abs engaged, bla bla bla)

2. Open up arms out to the side in a T position, palms facing down

3. Lift your chest as high as you can first, keeping your arms out wide

4. Once you’ve lifted your chest as high as you can, try to flap/reach your hands up towards the ceiling. Be sure to try to reach straight UP and not BACK towards your butt. (Honestly there is nothing “wrong” about reaching back towards your butt, but that’s a lot easier and this list is meant to get progressively harder - the arms-to-the-sky flap is a good challenge!)

5. Slowly lower back down with control

6. Repeat for 8-12 reps

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This is where we start getting in towards more of the contortion-training-esque (aka more advanced) back extension variations). These following exercises may not be suitable for beginners.

Holding a Block

1. Same start as above variations (belly down, face down, abs engaged, bla bla bla), but this time holding a block between your two hands

2. Keeping arms straight and face towards the floor, start to lift your chest

3. Once your chest is lifted as high as you can (which may not be very high!), try to lift your block as high as you can (which also may not be very high - but that’s OK! As long as you’re feeling your arms and shoulders work, you’re doing it correctly).

4. Slowly lower back down to the mat

5. Repeat for 8-12 reps

Shoulder Flossing (with a Strap)

1. Same start as above variations (belly down, face down, abs engaged, bla bla bla), but holding a strap between your hands, arms wide. Hands at least as wide as your mat (or wider) is a good starting point. You can use a stretchy strap, or a stiff strap (like a yoga strap), but a stretchy one will be a bit more comfortable.

2. Lift your chest first, as high as you can

3. Once your chest is lifted, then start to reach your hands up and back, reaching the strap back towards your butt, letting your shoulders rotate. Then (chest is still lifted - no relaxing yet) bring the strap back to the front, and slowly lower your chest down. Keep your arms straight the whole time (don’t let your elbows bend!). If you find your elbows bending, take your hands wider / farther apart on your strep

4. Repeat for 5-12 reps

Floaty Birds (Contortion-Style Back Extensions)

Obvious disclaimer: this is a much more advanced variation of the previous back extensions, definitely not for beginners!

1. Start on your belly, arms reaching forwards

2. Engage your abs (suck your belly button in)

3. Start to lift your torso and your arms up away from the floor

4. Keep reaching arms up and back, making a big arch with your hands, trying to lift your chest even higher as your arms reach back

5. Slowly lower with control (bonus points if you do the reverse arm swoop, bringing your arms up and over back to the front, but you can also just melt down without the fancy arm swoop if you’re just starting on these)

6. Repeat for 5-12 reps. Preferably in a public gym. Bask in the impressed stares of onlookers ;)

How many should I be doing?

How many should you be doing, and how frequently? It really depends on your goals. For “regular” flexibility folks just looking to work on general, safe back flexibility (for example, folks who want to be able to do a bridge, or make their current bridge a little more comfortable) - I’d suggest something like 2 sets of 8-12 reps (of any of these) a couple of days a week as part of your regular flexibility practice. For contortionists, these really are the bread-and-butter of training and you should be doing a buttload as part of your contortion training, something closer to 30-40 reps (split across different sets, with breaks in between) for beginner contortionists, and closer to 50+ reps for more advanced practitioners.

For example, in my Beginning Contortion classes, we do back extensions as part of our back conditioning after our full-body warm up before diving into our deeper bending work, and this could look like:

• 8-10 locust back extensions

• 8-10 big bird flap back extensions

• 8-10 elbow squeeze back extensions

• 5-10 shoulder flossing back extensions

• (Note: don’t attempt all these sets back-to-back without rest - that would be brutal, even for contortionists! I like to mix in rest poses, ab work, or shoulder conditioning in between all these low-back intense drills to give the low back a chance to recover)

Want to Learn More?

Want to learn more back conditioning and flexibility drills like these? Check out my Wednesday night (6pm-7pm Central Time) All Levels Flexibility: Active Shoulder & Back Flexibility class, or the Sunday (11am-12:15pm Central Time) Beginning Contortion classes for more flexy backbendy adventures! (And all classes are recorded, so if that time zone doesn’t work for you, you can always get a copy of the recording).