maratoolSuperman
How to do the superman
- To begin, lie straight and face down on the floor or exercise mat. Your arms should be fully extended in front of you. This is the starting position.
- Simultaneously raise your arms, legs, and chest off of the floor and hold this contraction for 2 seconds. Tip: Squeeze your lower back to get the best results from this exercise. Remember to exhale during this movement. Note: When holding the contracted position, you should look like superman when he is flying.
- Slowly begin to lower your arms, legs and chest back down to the starting position while inhaling.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions prescribed in your program.
Muscles worked
The muscles under tension are the spinal erectors running either side of the lumbar spine, which hold the spine extended instead of letting it round under load.
A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.
Nothing travels, but holding the position is not the target muscle’s job alone: the glutes finish hip extension; the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down.
Every exercise for:Lower backGlutesHamstrings
How this movement works
Several joints combine to set the position, and then everything stops. Because the shape is held rather than repeated, the limit is how long the whole chain stays where you put it — not how strong any single muscle in that chain happens to be.
It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the lower back too, using equipment this one does not:
- Weighted Ball Hyperextensionexercise ball
- Barbell Dead Liftsbarbell
- Dumbbell Dead Liftsdumbbell
- Hyperextensionsbench
- Lower Back-SMRfoam roll
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 35 lower back exercises in this database, 11 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.