Back Hyperextensions
Nick Rizzo, personal trainer and fitness research director at RunRepeat.Com, loves this back exercise. It effectively targets your lower back muscles while extending your spine, helping to build muscle and reduce fat tissue. If you don't have the gym equipment for this exercise, don't worry. You can easily replicate it with no equipment at all.
How to do them: Lie on your stomach with your arms and legs extended. Lift your right arm and left leg. Hold and then repeat on the other side.
Bent Over Flies
Erin Motz, co-founder of Bad Yogi, NASM certified personal trainer and yoga teacher, loves this exercise to target and tone your upper back and shoulders.
How to do them: Holding your dumbbells with your feet shoulder-width apart, bend your knees and lean forward. Keep your back flat. Then, raise your arms so they're at the same level as your torso. Keep a slight bend in the elbows as you lift, hold, and lower your arms outward in a flying motion. Repeat.
Around the Worlds
Motz also suggests incorporating Around the Worlds into your exercise routine to target back fat. However, she specifies that in order to make this exercise as effective as possible, you need to avoid relying on momentum. She explains, "Go slowly and only do the weight you can control." In other words, to get the most out of this exercise, pick weights that you'll be able to control throughout the movement.
How to do them: Lying down with dumbbells in each hand, lift your arms outward (not upward). Move them in a semi-circle until they are overhead, then reverse the motion. Repeat.
Renegade Rows
This exercise is great for toning your back and shoulders while also engaging your core. It requires only minimal equipment (a pair of dumbbells), but is still super effective. Motz loves this exercise for targeting back fat, but warns that it is difficult: "Everything from your shoulders down to your quads will be firing, so if you feel shaky all over, that's normal!"
How to do them: Place a pair of dumbbells shoulder-width apart. Grab both weights in a push up position while keeping your hips level and square to the ground. Row one weight straight back and drive through the elbow. Hold. Repeat on the other side.