Foundation Training is a series of bodyweight exercises designed to reduce back pain, correct posture, and strengthen the muscles along the back of your body. Developed by chiropractor Dr. Eric Goodman to address his own chronic back pain, the system combines specific movement patterns with a breathing technique called decompression breathing. There’s no equipment involved, and the recommended daily practice is just 15 to 20 minutes.
How Foundation Training Works
The central idea is that most people load too much stress onto their lower back and not enough onto their hips, glutes, and hamstrings. Sitting for hours, hunching over screens, and moving in repetitive patterns create imbalances that weaken the muscles running along the back of your legs, hips, and spine (collectively called the posterior chain). Foundation Training aims to reverse this by teaching your body to channel force through your hips instead of your vulnerable lower back.
What sets the approach apart from typical core training is its sequencing: lengthen first, then strengthen. Rather than jumping straight into building muscle endurance, the exercises start by releasing tight, shortened muscles back to their proper length. Strength work is then layered on from that corrected position. This is meant to address the root of the imbalance rather than reinforcing a body that’s already compensating.
The Signature Exercises
The anchor of the entire system is an exercise called The Founder. It’s a standing hip-hinge movement that teaches you to recruit and strengthen the full posterior chain. To perform it, you stand with feet hip-width apart, toes pointing forward, then hinge your hips back behind your heels while keeping your chest lifted and shoulders pulled back and down. Your arms reach straight overhead while you maintain that hinged position. It reinforces proper movement mechanics and assists spinal decompression, essentially training you to bend and lift using your hips rather than rounding through your lower back.
The other cornerstone is decompression breathing. Standing in the same hip-width stance, you inhale deeply to expand your rib cage, creating space between your vertebrae. As you exhale, you draw your navel toward your spine while actively lengthening your spine upward. Your core muscles learn to hold that decompressed, elongated position even after the breath is released. A typical set involves 5 to 10 deep breaths. This technique isn’t just a warm-up; it’s woven into every other exercise in the system and is considered the mechanism that creates actual space in the spine.
What It Targets in the Body
Foundation Training addresses three categories of core stability that matter for everyday life and injury prevention. Anti-extension exercises prevent your spine from over-arching backward, which is critical when you’re lifting anything overhead. Your abdominal muscles work against gravity’s pull on the lower back. Anti-rotation exercises train your core to resist twisting forces, creating stable power transfer between your upper and lower body. Anti-flexion exercises, like back extension holds, strengthen the posterior chain to keep you upright against the constant forward pull of gravity.
The practical result is that your body learns to distribute force more evenly. Instead of your lower back absorbing the impact of picking up a child, carrying groceries, or sitting at a desk for eight hours, the load gets shared across a wider network of muscles that are better suited to handle it.
Who It’s Designed For
The system was built around chronic back pain, and that remains its primary audience. If you sit most of the day, have a desk job, or notice your posture deteriorating, the exercises directly address those patterns. But the benefits extend beyond pain relief. Regular practice improves breathing capacity, body awareness, and overall movement quality. It’s used both as a corrective tool for existing pain and as a preventive strategy against future injuries.
For people already dealing with back pain or discomfort, Dr. Goodman recommends 15 to 20 minutes a day for the best results. The exercises are low-impact and bodyweight-only, which makes them accessible to people who can’t tolerate high-intensity training. That said, the positions are deceptively demanding. Holding The Founder for even 30 seconds will challenge your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back in ways that a squat or deadlift does not.
How It Compares to Other Core Training
Traditional core work often focuses on crunches, planks, and sit-ups, movements that primarily target the front of the body. Foundation Training deliberately shifts attention to the back. The biomechanical logic overlaps with the approach developed by spine researcher Dr. Stuart McGill, whose “Big 3” exercises (modified curl-up, side plank, and bird dog) are considered a gold standard for building spinal endurance without adding stress. Foundation Training shares the principle of protecting the spine through muscular endurance rather than brute strength, but layers in the decompression breathing and hip-hinge patterns as its primary tools.
It’s also not a stretching routine, though it involves lengthening. The distinction is that you’re actively holding positions under tension while breathing into expanded postures, building strength at end ranges of motion rather than passively hanging in a stretch.
Learning and Certification
You can start Foundation Training at home through online programs available on the official website and platforms like Centr. The exercises are simple enough to learn from video instruction, though the breathing technique takes practice to internalize.
For fitness professionals who want to teach the method, Foundation Training offers a two-tier certification. Level 1 costs $3,500 and includes a six-module online education program, a two-day in-person skills training, supervised student teaching, and a video assessment. Level 2 requires you to hold Level 1 certification for at least one year before enrolling, and costs $2,500. Both levels involve in-person events held in locations across the United States.