The Cal Strength guys uploaded some of their old technique / tip videos (like the Upper Body Stretches & Lower Body Stretches for Weightlifters) to the CalStrength YouTube Channel.
We touched the Arch ups vs Curl ups matter before, but here is the video Glenn Pendlay & Donny Shankle did a few years back.
Personally, I like to do the straight back version at the end of my squat days and the curl up version as a finisher on deadlift / back days.
Straight Back Extension (aka Back Raise):
- no real extension of the back , spine stays in the same place -> works isometric only
Curl Up Back Extension:
- hips locked
- flexing, extending the spine
Greg Everett says about back extensions that they
- can be done every day before and/or after training
- hold weight behind your neck instead of in front of your chest
- alternate between days on which you use resistance and days on which you do the reps unweighted
When / How do you do them?
Straight back with myself and all my clients. I use it to reinforce/train the hip hinge and strengthen the glutes and hamstrings. I’m not a fan of that curl up because I’d prefer to keep myself and my athletes out of lumbar hyper-extension during training as often as possible.
If you do a normal curl up (unlike the waist-rested in this vid) you get more glute activation than a straight back raise
@google-a2316079100522ced23b3407efd6d654:disqus where is that source from? Not trolling but do you have that based on anything beyond anecdotally from training?
Can’t give a paper title, in which they have tested. My sorce is my geeky physio friend. According to him, from a functional/healthy perspective you want more glutes than hams, and squeezing of the glutes should pull the back up in a vertebrae by vertabrae to ensure glutes>hams.
I recall Kelly Starret has mentioned the same: Upper part of glute-region is more active in hip-extension with flat lumbar-spine rather then arched.