Lower back exercise
Spine Stretch ForwardHow to do it, with form in numbers
- Main muscles
- Lower back, Hamstrings
- Also works
- Abs
- Equipment
- Yoga mat
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
How do you do the Spine Stretch Forward?
- Sit tall with your legs straight and a little wider than your hips, feet flexed.
- Reach your arms forward at shoulder height, palms down.
- Breathe out, drop your chin and round forward one vertebra at a time, reaching your arms forward.
- Keep your hips stacked over your sit bones.
- Breathe in and restack your spine from the bottom up, head last; repeat 4–6 times.
Cues
- Round up and over a big ball.
- Hips stay stacked, belly scoops in.
- Grow taller every time you come up.
Common mistakes
- Folding from the hips: keep the hips upright and round the spine instead.
- Slumping at the start: sit on a folded blanket if your lower back rounds.
- Lifting the head first: the head comes up last.
Form in detail
What does good form look like?
The version in our demo
The classical mat Spine Stretch Forward (Joseph Pilates, Return to Life; Balanced Body mat manual): sitting tall with the legs apart, round the spine forward one part at a time from the head, then restack. It is a spinal articulation, not a hamstring stretch: the hips stay stacked.
Starting position
Sitting tall on the sit bones, legs straight and a little wider than the hips (about mat-width), feet flexed; arms reaching forward at shoulder height, palms down.
The movement
Breathe out, drop the chin and round forward from the top of the spine down, as if over a big ball, reaching the arms forward; keep the hips stacked over the sit bones. Breathe in and restack the spine from the lower back up, the head last, back to sitting tall.
Breathing
Out to round forward, in to restack.
Tempo
6 s: tall 0.5 s, round 2.5 s (out-breath), hold 0.4 s, restack 2.6 s (in-breath). Real practice: 4–6 slow reps.
Form in numbers
What are the angles and distances?
- Tall: trunk within 3° of vertical; legs straight (knees about 7°), ankles 60 cm apart, feet flexed; arms at shoulder height, straight (elbows about 11°).
- Round: the head first (chin to chest), then the spine rounds 62° in a C-curve; the arms reach forward and 18° down; the head ends 37–38 cm above the mat.
- The hips do not move (0.0 cm).
The targets our 3D demo was built to, from the references below. Bodies differ, so treat the ranges as a guide for your own build.
For coaches
Use this demo in your clients’ programs
The Spine Stretch Forward is in Trainaq’s exercise library. Add it to a workout, and your client sees this demo in the free Trainaq app above the sets they log.
Sources
Sources
- J. Pilates and W. J. Miller, Return to Life through Contrology (1945), "The Spine Stretch".
- Balanced Body, Pilates Mat instructor manual
