Best Exercises to Strengthen Your Lower Back
It’s easy to almost forget that we have muscles in our backs. We can see and feel our biceps and abs working, but if we ever have lower back pain, we often worry that we’ve damaged our spine. In fact, there’s a ton of muscle back there. We shouldn’t be afraid to use them, and we shouldn’t be so surprised when we feel they work.
Before we get into the explanations and recommendations, one quick note: many of your favorite exercises already target your lower back. Every deadlift variation, every bent-over exercise (like the bent-over row), and most hinge exercises (like the good morning, especially seated and arched-back exercises) give a lot of work to the lower back. The exercises below are something you might want to do in addition if you want to give your lower back some extra love.
What muscles do you have in your lower back?
There are many muscles in the lower back, but perhaps the largest group is a family of interconnected muscles called the erector spinae , or erector spinae. These are two columns of muscles that run on either side of our spine.
If you lean forward and round your back, you will relax your erector spinae muscles. And when you stand up from this rounded position, these erector spinae straighten your spine. These are also the muscles that help us arch our back or tilt our pelvis forward.
And if you’ve ever deadlifted heavy weights, you know what it’s like to work those muscles hard. During a hinge movement like a deadlift, you need to keep your back relatively straight (some trainers use the phrase “neutral spine”) even when the weight is trying to move your back out of place. Guess which muscles have to work hard to keep your spine straight? Those same spinal extensors.
So when we talk about lower back exercises, we’re talking about these muscles (and some others that work alongside them, like the multifidus ) that elongate the spine.
To make sure we are all on the same page with the movements:
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The straightening or arching of your back is the direction in which you move when you bend back. The back muscles contract.
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Bending or rounding your back is the direction you move when you lean forward. Your abs are responsible for most of these movements.
The lower back exercises we’ll talk about today are the ones that stretch your back. This may mean that you start from a neutral spine position and bend backwards, or it may mean that you start from a bent position and straighten your torso until it is straight.
(Meanwhile, the glutes extend the hips , which is a related but different task. Many lower back exercises work both the glutes and the back muscles.)
Honorary awards in the weight category:
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Supermen
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Glute bridges (one or two legs)
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Boards
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Side bars
Best Lower Back Exercise for Beginners: Bird Dogs
The bird dog is the partner of the dead bug that I included in my post about the best ab exercises . (The dead bug was beginner friendly.)
To make the bird dog, you get down on all fours. Then try lifting one arm and the opposite leg while keeping your back as flat as a table. If it’s difficult, great! There are easier versions of the exercise, and now you have a path to improvement: do harder and harder versions until you can do “real” bird dogs.
Too easy? You can add some weight with dumbbells and ankle weights, but once you outgrow regular bird dogs, you’ll probably be better off moving on to another exercise.
The best lower back exercise you can do in a regular gym: back extensions.
Look around your local gym and there’s a good chance you’ll find a “machine” that’s just a bench at an odd angle. Secure your feet and hips onto it and you can lean forward at the hips and lift your torso up and down.
There are several variations of this exercise. Usually people keep their back straight all the time, trying to rest on their hips.
If you achieve a straight position at the top, this is a “back extension.” If you take it even further, lifting your back until it arches, this is called “back hyperextension.” Both are good, but make sure you choose the one you need. Striving for extensions and accidentally performing hyperextensions means that you are not in control of the exercise.
You can do this exercise using just your body weight, or you can hold a plate or other weight to your chest.
The best lower back exercise you can do in the powerlifting gym: reverse hyperextensions.
Powerlifters love a machine they call the “reverse hyper,” which is essentially a reverse version of the exercise described above. (Hyper, like hyperextension, you know?)
Legend has it that Louis Simmons, owner of Westside Barbell, invented this machine to help him rehabilitate his back after surgery. It worked so well that the powerlifters at his gym and many powerlifters today consider it an exercise for maintaining a healthy back or rehabilitating an injured back.
Best kept secret: Jefferson curls
Still with me? Okay, at the end of the list I would like to talk about an exercise that is less known or that scares people when they first see it, even though it is a great exercise. (If you saw the pearl clutching about upright rows in the post on shoulder exercises , you know what I mean.)
Today I’d like to introduce you to the Jefferson Curl. This involves rounding your back, which can seem dangerous if you’ve internalized all the language from trainers and workplace safety professionals about “neutral spine” and “lift with your feet.” But our back is capable of bending, and bending it is healthy and normal.
Obviously, you wouldn’t walk up and try to lift a 300-pound Jefferson on your first day at the gym, but if you work on Jefferson raises with light weights, you may find that they become your new favorite back accessory. (I even programmed them as part of physical therapy when I had a back injury.)
To perform a Jefferson curl, you first bend over, rounding your spine and feeling a stretch in your lower back. Then you remember every time you heard a yoga instructor tell you to “roll to a standing position, one vertebra at a time” and do just that.
Add weight by holding a kettlebell, barbell, or any other weight you like. If you are flexible, you will have to stand on the box to make room and put your hands next to or even under your feet. I like how trainer Tasha Louis often performs Jefferson curls with a barbell held at the elbows, Zercher style , for added clarity.