How to do the Machine Back Extension
Step by step
- Set the pad below your hips and hook your ankles under the roller.
- Cross your arms or place hands by your temples with your body straight.
- Hinge down at the hips until you feel a hamstring stretch, keeping your back flat.
- Squeeze your glutes to raise your body back in line - do not arch past straight.
The thing people get wrong
Stop at a straight line at the top; cranking into a big backward arch stresses the lower spine instead of working the glutes and hamstrings.
Coaching cue
Keep your back flat on the way down instead of curling your spine toward the floor.
Muscles worked
- Primary: Glutes, Hamstrings
- Secondary: Core
What to do instead
Same job, different movement — useful if you don't have the equipment or it doesn't feel right today.
Daily Coach builds this into a real weekly plan. It picks the exercises for your equipment and experience, swaps around injuries you tell it about, and tracks what you actually lifted.