Ready for the #2 exercise? CLICK HERE.

The Exercise(s)

I like to cut to the chase. Here are the 2 methods of doing this one exercise that will be extremely helpful for most people.

Unless you have some reason to avoid these (they cause more pain or pain in the leg or you had back surgery), you should incorporate them into your daily life in order to significantly reduce your likelihood of being slowed down by low back pain. Do 10 reps at least 2x/day.

Comments On The Two Methods

The standing method is much easier to incorporate into your daily life. It is particularly helpful if you've been sitting for a while or before & after you're going to lift something heavy or be in a flexed (forward bent) position for a while.

The laying method is much more effective at achieving prevention (or even reduction in pain in many cases) and may even feel quite tight or restricted at first. But if you can, do this one over the standing method. You will progress to LOVING it!

Why Are These So Important?

Back pain is the most common source of musculoskeletal pain by far.

We live and move in a very unbalanced way. Look at this study which showed how much time we spend in flexion (bending forward) as compared to extension (bending backward).

To summarize then, we all will spend a combined 5 hours in some level of flexion of the spine during a normal day and only a bit over 20 minutes in extension of the spine.

Quite unbalanced, right?

Well the next question is - does it matter in regard to pain? Let me show you these next two studies that will give us our answer.

Two Studies

1. 314 military personnel were separated into 2 groups: #1: routine training and #2: routine training PLUS repeated extension in standing 2x/day for 1 year. The results? Group #2 had significantly fewer episodes of low back pain & significantly fewer doctor encounters. [1]
2. 166 factory workers were split into 2 groups: #1: given a manual on back ergonomics while group #2 were given the repeated extension in standing 2x/day for the year. The results? Group #2 had zero episodes of low back pain or loss of work while 11% of the workers in group #1 did. [2]

So do your backbends every day and have a healthier back.

Ready for the #2 exercise? CLICK HERE. 



I pray this helps you in stewarding your body to the glory of God.

[1]  Larson 2002 Spine

[2] Matsudaira 2015