Back Strengthening: Seated Back Extension

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Ball Sit to Hands on Floor

This exercise can be done with the child sitting on your lap, on a bench, on a ball or on a peanut. It is much easier of course if the child’s feet are on the floor. Sometimes the floor is too low for the child to successfully reach to so I will start with my hand close to the child’s knee level and ask, “Can you touch me here?” Then I move a little lower progressively to see how far he can lean down and return to upright from. (Obviously if the child is reaching for my hand, I am no longer behind him holding his hips). Instead of using my hand I may use stacked cups or cones and see how small a stack the child can lean down and knock over. If the child is successful, I take one more cone/cup off the stack and have the child try it again. Or if I know the height that is challenging, I may get a correct height bench and put something like puzzle pieces down on the bench for a child to lean down to pick up repeatedly to bring up to put the pieces in. I love the Kaye Products adjustable bench for this kind of activity. When the child is sitting on a bench (not the ball as pictured here) I can adjust the height of the bench to make sure the bench is the right height for the child’s feet to hit the floor. Then I use another adjustable bench to have the right height for the child to lean down and pick up. For some clients, it is too difficult to grasp an object such as a puzzle piece to pick up. So that is when I retreat to simply something to knock over or an electric keyboard for the child to lean down to touch to activate. Often children want to touch down with just one hand and not both. If this is a particular problem, I may put down 2 objects to pick up or 2 towers to knock down. Of course if you wanted to make this exercise harder, the child could pick up a weight with one or 2 hands or pick up a weighted ball. You could have him hold some theratubing or theraband down with his feet and then pull with his hands the free ends to resist him as he returns to upright sitting.