Extensor Exercises

Your body comprises several extensor muscles. These muscles act opposite to your body's joint flexors. As you can figure from their names, an extensor straightens a joint while a flexor bends it. You have extensor muscles in your shoulders, arm, hips and legs, just to a name a few. For example, the triceps of your arms extend your elbows when you contract them, thus straightening your arms. To strengthen the major extensor muscles of your body, perform a variety of weight-training exercises using a rep range between eight and 12. To adequately stimulate your extensor muscles, do at least three sets and up to five sets per exercise.

  1. Straight-Arm Lat Pulldown

    • The two strongest extensor muscles of your shoulders are the latissimus dorsi of your back, posterior deltoid of your shoulders and triceps brachii of your arms. The straight-arm pulldown works both of these muscles directly. To do this exercise, first stand in front of a cable high-pulley machine. Straighten your arms and hold the cable bar attachment with both hands in an overhand grip. Take a few steps back from the machine while leaning forward at the waist so your torso is at about a 45-degree angle. You should feel your shoulder extensor muscles stretched out at this point. Now pull the cable bar attachment close to your body by extending your shoulders, or more simply, moving your arms towards the back. Once the bar is close to you, then flex your shoulders to return the bar up to the starting point.

    Triceps Kickback

    • The triceps are made up of three heads: medial, lateral and long. The latter crosses both your shoulder and elbow joints, thus acting as both a shoulder extensor and an elbow extensor. You learned how to train your shoulder extensors, so now on to your elbow extensors. In addition to all three heads of the triceps, a small muscle at the back of your elbow, called the anconeus, also works to extend your elbows. To train all these muscles, do the triceps kickback. Grasp a dumbbell in each hand, put your feet shoulder-width apart on the ground, bend your knees and lean forward until your torso is parallel to the ground. Hold the dumbbells by your sides with your arms bent past 90 degrees. Now you are ready to do the exercise. First extend your elbows to contract your triceps and anconeus until your arms are fully straight, or just short of lock out. Then, bend your elbows to return to the initial position.

    Leg Kickback

    • Your body has three muscles that mainly act as hip extensors: gluteus maximus (buttocks), hamstrings and adductor magnus. One of the most straightforward hip-extension exercises you can do is the leg kickback. Begin by wearing an ankle cuff around your right ankle and attaching the ankle cuff to a low cable pulley. Stand facing the pulley system with your legs straight. Bring your right leg as far back as you can by extending your right hip. Contract your hip extensors and then bring your right leg forward to the start. Repeat with the other side when you're all done with the right side.

    Leg Extension

    • One of the strongest muscles of your body is located in your front thigh region and this muscle is called the quadriceps. Its function is to straighten your legs via knee extension. The leg extension exercise is therefore an excellent movement for this powerful extensor muscle. Do the standing cable knee extension. Wear the ankle cuff attached to a low pulley, but this time, stand facing away from the cable pulley. Set the low pulley at a higher position -- close to knee height. As you do this, you must bend your right leg, essentially stretching your quadriceps muscles. This is the beginning position. Straighten your right leg by contracting your quadriceps and extending your right knee. Once your right leg is fully straight, then return to the beginning position by flexing your right knee.