The lower back is often a weak spot for many people—without them even knowing it. However, even though your lower back has an integral group of muscles that affects almost every motion the body does throughout the day, the simple fact is that the lower back is often overlooked when it is time to workout.

This routine is designed to target the lower back quickly and effectively so you don't have to devote copious time to a group of muscles that may not be your main focus (though they probably should be). The main intention of this routine is to effectively burn out the lower back to increase endurance, and even strength for some people, without taking up precious exercise time that you would rather use for focusing on weight loss, total body toning and shaping, improving cardiovascular endurance, etc.

Because of the demands put on the lower back during exercises for almost every other part of the body, you should not do this routine before any other workout. This will keep you from exhausting your lower back before you move on to another workout that requires the lower back for support, which could increase your chances for letting your form slide or even injury. Only do this routine as the last workout of the day, as the only workout of the day, or with at least a 4 hour break before another workout.

With this routine, we will be going through 8 different exercises for 50 seconds per exercise. The only break you get will be the time it takes you to move from one exercise to the next. Some of the exercises will be done standing, but most will be done from the floor, so we recommend using a mat or at least doing this routine on some kind of soft surface like carpeting.

The following is the exact workout and order of exercises used in this routine.

Breast Stroke
Swimmers
Windmill Toe Touches
Straight Leg Dead Lifts
Rotational Toe Touches
Back Bows
Bird Dogs
Cobra to Child's Pose

This 7 minute routine burns on average 3-7 calories per minute giving you a total burn of 21-49 calories. Now keep in mind that with the nature of this routine you can easily burn less than that if you just go through the motions. To get the most out of this workout be sure to intentionally contract not only the muscles that are being directly used but also every other muscle in your body as well, especially the large leg, chest, and arm muscles. If you concentrate on working harder than you have to to get each exercise done then you can easily burn far more calories as well as increasing the toning effect that this program provides for the entire body.