R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Having a strong Good Morning helps safeguard them in the event of falling forward. The last thing anyone wants is to be stapled to the ground with a barbell crushing them. If their Good Morning is strong they will be able to keep a strong arch and not fall forward, and in the event that they do lean forward too much, a strong Good Morning will let them arch the bar back into position without even thinking about it.

Is It Safe

One thing to understand with the Good Morning is just because you can put hundreds of pounds on your back and squat, it does not mean you will be able to do the same right away with the Good Morning.  The Good Morning is a prime example of the saying “Learn how to crawl before trying to run!” Generally it is not the guys and girls who can do hundreds of pounds with the Good Morning that are often getting hurt. People who tend to get hurt the most doing Good Mornings are people trying to use too much weight too fast or people using bad form because they have not developed those posterior chain muscles to a level that can handle the weight they are trying to do. If a person is just starting out with the Good Morning learn to do them in the safety of a squatting rack with pins first. Powerlifting is all about piling on the plates but if a person trys to pile on the plates with Good Mornings before they are ready, it is one of the quickest ways to take a nice long vacation from moving the heavy iron.

Here are some tips to master the basic technique of the standard Good Morning.

·         Keep feet about hip to shoulder width apart.

·         Place the bar just above the shoulder blades

·         Always look ahead when performing the Good Morning. Make sure to keep the head in line with the torso when bending forward.

·         Inflate your chest and keep it puffed out as you lower your torso.

·         Push back with the glutes and hips as the torso is lowering

·         Be sure to drive forward with the glutes and hips when coming back up

Chain Strength

Without doing some form of squatting of deadlifting, the Good Moring is probably the most bang for your buck when it comes to working the entire posterior chain. Since the goal of the Good Morning is to build up the posterior chain strength the goal should be to have a Good Morning that is roughly 60-70% of a person’s one rep squat. In other words if someone has a 500 pound squat, their Good Morning should be somewhere between 300-350 pounds for the standard good morning.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Anyone who has done some serious powerlifting will tell you that the central nervous system takes a beating after a few weeks of heavy hard training.  A good way to help combat this is through rotating exercises every few weeks. The Good Morning is no different. Since the Good Morning is such a valuable exercise, a person wants to use it and use it often.  Repeatedly doing the same type of Good Morning a few times every week, will have the same effect on breaking down the central nervous system. The key is to continuously use the Good Morning throughout training but rotating how the Good Mornings are done every 2-3 weeks and using different types of Good Mornings at different training sessions.  Like all good exercises the Good Morning comes in many varieties. When you get into rounded back vs. arched back, foot placements, and types of bars used there can actually be hundreds of variations on the Good Morning. Here are just a few variations of the Good Morning that someone can use:

·         Seated Good Mornings

·         Arched Back Good Mornings

·         Straight Arm Barbell Good Mornings

·         Good Morning with Chains

·         Safety Squat Bar Good Mornings

·         Concentric Good Mornings

·         Banded Good Mornings

·         Single Leg Good Morning

The Good Morning is one of the most valuable exercises that can be incorporated in a powerlifting routine. The Good Morning will do wonders for not only improving a squat but also a deadlift. Although Good Mornings are hard and brutal, done correctly they are a safe and very effective exercise to use. Good Mornings also come in many variations so different variations can easily be cycled in and out of training cycles. If you are not currently using Good Mornings but are serious about improving your squat and deadlift add them in. If you are already using Good Mornings in your training you could try some of the many different forms of Good Mornings. Either way in a few weeks time the results will prove themselves.