There seems to be lingering confusion within certain populations regarding the back extension and hip extension. Without naming names, let’s shut the book on the issue here and now. Any questions regarding the difference between the movements after this will result in punitive measures, including future PM articles by Dean Ornish and this broad.

First some remedial anatomy. The hip is not a bone. It’s a joint. Namely, the joint of the femur and the pelvis. You probably have two. Stand up and lift one knee. Now look down. The point at which your body changes from vertical to horizontal is roughly your hip. Note this for the record. You can try with the other leg too, but it will be the same spot.

The pelvis is connected to your head with your spine unless you’re some kind of medical experiment. For our purposes here, the spine is your back. It’s simply a long series of small bones connected with joints. That’s right, there isn’t a back joint; there are 24 of them that move significantly and few more that don’t. Most of the movement we’ll be concerned with will be in the lumbar and thoracic regions, the 5 vertebrae right above your gluteus assimus and the 12 above that, respectively.

Stand back up. Clamp down your glutes—this will lock your pelvis in place. Now slowly lean forward, trying to touch your shoulders to your waist. That’s back flexion.

Now that we all know what our bodies do, we can stick them on a big chunk of equipment and bend them any way we choose.

Hip Extension

Slide your bad self into a glute-ham bench or similar device with the fulcrum (pad) below your guts (the region below the chest and above the privates). Let yourself hang down so you’re bent at 90 degrees. Now work your body magic to bring your spine into its normal curvature and set it tightly. Keeping it set, raise your torso up to horizontal or slightly above. You should feel glute and hamstring activation in addition to the isometric work your erectors and the gang are doing to keep the back straight. Repeat as needed. Additional weight can be added in the form of a bar on the back of the shoulders, plates, dumbbells or the like held on the chest, or bands.

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Back Extension

Move the fulcrum of the glute-ham bench out a little bit more under the pelvis. Lock down the pelvis by activating the glutes and hamstrings and don’t let it move. Now simply bend throughout the spine to bring yourself down and up. This is typically the more difficult of the two movements—practice. Additional weight can be added, but go easy. Since nearly everytime we’re handling heavy loads we want our spines locked into neutral, there really isn’t a need to train spine flexion and extension loaded.

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Combo Platters

Of course the two movements can be combined into one—but don’t do this as an excuse to not learn to separate the two. The combination will add a little more range of motion and can be a nice finisher after some heavy structural work to keep everything greased and moving freely.