There's one exercise I've been finding extremely effective for improving posture, developing the posterior chain, and restoring pain-free balance to the body. Sitting is quietly stiffening our hips and making our backs weaker. The back extension trains the muscles that turn off as we sit. I'm 6 months in, my back feels healthier than ever. The guy who inspired me to train these, knees over toes guy. I asked him to coach Strength Side audience through getting started and progressing this movement. And there's an at-home version that requires no equipment at all. But I want to share my story before we get there. I thought of this as a low back exercise and it is, yet the whole posterior chain gets to work. Hamstrings, glutes, the upper back, they all become developed. There's nothing wrong with flexion, like slumping into a chair, but it's often the path of least resistance. This trains our ability to move in and out of there with strength and control. Extension is the first developmental strength we go through, lifting our head and spine against gravity. I started to see that all kids can do this, but it's adults who slowly lose the strength and ability. In January of this year, I landed a backflip a bit awkwardly and felt a tweak in my low back. I thought it would just go away, but it persisted. I hadn't had [music] back pain in many years, not since I leaned into movement and mobility over lifting heavy weights. But when I got on the back extension, I realized I hadn't been training my lower back's ability at all. Just 10 bodyweight reps was leaving me super fatigued and sore the next day. I saw how much conviction Knees Over Toes Guy and Low Back Ability have with the back extension that I thought, "Let's try to get really strong here and see what happens." I started training it twice a week. That 10 reps that was hard in the beginning, I can now do 35-ish. Started adding a weight plate, worked up to 20 reps. The single reps were darn near impossible when I started. Now I can do about 20, maybe even 25 on each side. And I think these have been my favorite because I found that my right side was quite a bit weaker. I came for the low back, but I got the whole posterior chain. What I wasn't expecting was my hips to feel more open. But of course, this is the reverse of sitting. By strengthening the backside, the front side opens. A lot of people become intolerant here. It makes a lot of sense to practice it as a life skill. My back feels stronger, thicker even. Fortunately, the back injury is a thing of the past. I'll kick it to Ben to show you how to start this movement and where to take it. >> For over 60 years, physical therapists have found something as simple as this to help the lower back. Why? Well, the number one way to injure your lower back is bending over to pick things up or as you saw with the back flip, extreme force this way. So, this just gives us a relatively safe way to increase ability [snorts] without the injury risk. Then, we could gradually increase range of motion. But, this whole thing is a game of your demands in life versus your ability to handle them. So, it would be dishonest for me to say, "Do this one thing for back pain." It would also be dishonest for me to say, "Your lower back problem isn't a back problem." To get more factual, your lower back is your lower back plus any supporting areas and your demands in life. Something as simple as an ankle, a common one someone sprains an ankle. Then, they go to do the same landing or the same squat or something and their normal pattern is off. It doesn't bend as far. Different pressure on the low back. So, it's all related and that's one of the beautiful things about Strength Side's channel. You're going to get that well-rounded ability and I wish I didn't have to use a machine, but let's take my own parents with back problems. I've been training them almost a decade. I started them right here because I knew they would do this. I put one of these in their living room, said, "Hold on and just go whatever feels good. I don't care how far. I don't care how many. Think weeks, months, years." Now, it has been many years. They've had fundamentally different lower back function by doing this along with other basics. For me, I have three kids. I play basketball hard. I feel I need a bit more. A 45-lb plate is going to be common in gym. You've got 10, 25, 45. You can get a bit bored with that. Like strength side will probably get bored with what you saw there. So, I started playing with this. This is a $4 50-lb sandbag. I've been playing with two of them now. I think the sweet spot is going to be the more commercial grade sandbags. I'm rebuilding a gym soon and I'm going to put like a lineup of those commercial grade sandbags with the back extension. So, here I am 100 lb. I'm squeezing at top. I'm flexing my glutes. Squeezing my abs. But then at the bottom I also can get a stretch and this is a last little benefit here. You can practically take a nap here. This is a strategic way to have flexibility along that backside and have the strength where is that same amount of weight hanging [clears throat] out in this position. You see, this is going to be a different pressure. So, it's just a strategic tool that's relatively accessible and simple and easy to use that can help us all in this game of demand versatility. I wanted to highlight this wall version that Ben showed. Prop pillows against the thighs for leverage and push the feet against the wall. You'll feel the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back kick on immediately. Just a 10 to 20-second hold here is pretty challenging and a great way for anyone to get started at home. And any commercial gym will have a back extension machine. Ben's not the type to push his products, which I greatly respect, but I had a cheap Amazon version of this and it was terrible. I upgraded to Ben's ATG back extension and I loved it. It's pre-assembled, which is huge and very sturdy. Link in description. Big shout out to Ben. Cannot recommend Knees Over Toes Guy channel enough. Drop us a comment of what you think.