Hyperextensions

🎯 Lower back🏋️ BenchIsolationHamstrings (2°)Abdominals (2°)

How to do the hyperextensions

  1. Adjust the hyperextension bench so that your ankles are tucked under the footpads and your thighs are flat across the top pad.
  2. With your arms folded across your chest and your back straight, slowly bend at the waist towards the floor, keeping your back flat.
  3. Slowly return to the starting position.
  4. Repeat.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the spinal erectors running either side of the lumbar spine, which hold the spine extended instead of letting it round under load.

Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down; the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders.

Every exercise for:Lower backHamstringsAbdominals

How this movement works

Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

A bench fixes the torso angle and gives you something to drive against, which is what lets the load go up without your position wandering.

Every exercise using:Bench

These train the lower back too, using equipment this one does not:

Related exercises

Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.