Incline Back Extension
The Incline Back Extension is a posterior chain exercise performed on a 45-degree bench that strengthens the lower back, glutes, and hamstrings. By hinging at the hips against gravity, it improves spinal stability and posture without heavy spinal loading.
Because the lower back is highly sensitive to cumulative fatigue, AI-based coaching is essential for optimizing the Incline Back Extension. The app analyzes your Recovery Score and HRV to determine if your posterior chain is recovered enough for this movement or if you should regress to a floor-based alternative. By tracking RPE and form consistency, the AI ensures you stay within a safe intensity range to build strength without overtraining the spinal erectors, and it remembers any past lower back discomfort to automatically adjust volume.
Form Cues
- Position the top of the pad just below your hip bones so your torso can hinge freely.
- Cross your arms over your chest or place hands behind your head.
- Lower your torso slowly until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings.
- Squeeze your glutes and hamstrings to pull yourself back up.
- Stop when your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
- Don't hyperextend or arch your back excessively at the top of the movement.
- Don't use momentum or swing your body upward.
- Don't round your upper back or shoulders forward.
- Don't look up and crane your neck; keep it neutral.
- Don't set the pad too high, which blocks hip flexion.
Common Mistakes
- Hyperextending the lumbar spine
- Setting the hip pad too high
- Using momentum to swing up
- Rounding the upper back
- Moving too fast
Muscles Worked
This exercise primarily targets the erector spinae, the muscles running along your spine that are crucial for posture and stability. It effectively engages the glutes and hamstrings as secondary movers to extend the hips, creating a cohesive posterior chain workout.
Primary
Secondary
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