Strength coach Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. frequently demonstrates stretches and mobility-focused workouts on the Athlean-X channel that are conducive to safer, injury-free training. In the above video, Cavaliere shares his technique for alleviating and avoiding lower back pain.

“If the hips aren’t strong, or the muscles around the hips, the glutes, aren’t strong, then the lower back tries to do the work of that, and that’s a problem,” he says. “We want to make sure the lower back is strong and stable.”

His tactic for maintaining a strong lower back? The reverse hyper-extension, a lower-body exercise which is performed by lying face down on the edge of a bench or a bed, and extending the lower body through space. “The reason why I use it and encourage you to use it every day is because you need to get a stronger lower back; those muscles are not strong enough,” he says. “Posturally, we put them through a beating.”

This strength, he adds, has to be driven from the bottom up—literally, starting with the glutes: “Squeeze the glutes together first, into extension, and lift up the rest of the way using the lower back. Feed it from the bottom up.”

He recommends performing 1 set of high quality reps in the morning, and another set later in the day. “As you accumulate more of these high quality repetitions, I guarantee you, if you have back pain right now that is driven from muscular weakness, your issues will go away.”