There seems to be a pretty common piece of knowledge around 'fitness' gyms that Goodmornings are bad for you and will wreck your back.

In fact when i started training again after a 12 year break 2 years ago, one of the first things i was told by the token big eastern european dude in my local Next Generation was 'dont be doing Goodmornings, youll not be able to walk in 6 months if you do them'. Granted my form was probably bad but he didnt say 'your form is off' he plain told me that GMs would cripple me.

Being a born again noob, i listened to him, after all, he was a big guy (so i thought back then).. in hindsight, i now realise i never saw this guy do more than a 1/4 squat, never saw him deadlift and rarely saw him do more than various dumbell presses and curls. I was still in the stage where big chest, big shoulders and big biceps = big guy, that view has changed quite a bit now.

So when i actually started reading stuff by actual strength coaches and saw them not just advocating but demanding people do Goodmornings, i took a second look.

I have a bit of a back problem in that when it 'pumps up' it gets painful to walk, 1/2 a mile usually does it or most form of work that involves lower back. However in the 3 weeks ive been doing GMs again, my back hasnt nagged at me once, and ive thrown a fair bit of abuse at it, gone for walks of several miles and even chased a sandwich van up the street as i wanted a yorkie and he was driving away.. i didnt catch him, but the realisiation id run and my back was fine with it was better than the smooth chunky chocolate goodness.

So could it be that my eastern european friend had it all wrong, and in fact Goodmornings are the best thing you can do for a strong healthy back?

Im sure a lot of 'health professionals' would cringe at the idea of putting 100kg+ on your back then bending at the waist/hips... but all i know is my back has never felt better, and all evidence points to the mighty good morning as being my saviour.

I agree with you Mark. I think they are a very useful exercise. I do them with my clients regularly.

In fact, I have two clients that have bad backs. One guy (6'5" 19 stone) was using a walking stick only 1 month before seeing me. I got him doing seated GMs (safest variation) and he actually enjoyed them as he felt it was allowing his back to "open up". I managed to help him lose 1.5 stone in 3 months. Needless to say his back was far better & much stronger.

The other guy still trains and does ATG squats (front & back), standing GMs (from starting with seated GMs) and he says his back has never been better.

I think as long as you are shown correctly how to do them, then there's no problem at all. ROM is important too, as far too many people get carried away with loading up the bar just to lean forward a little and call it a GM.

I think they're essential if you want to up your squat and DL's

I like seated GM's too as they really hit your back (but really get teh hams too) and if you're prepared to not go too heavy you can do a huge ROM that replicates very closely the position you'll be in at the bottom of a squat - I like going down to pins, relaxing slightly (but not completely - I think that woudl be very bad!) and then exploding up - Going down to the pins forces you to not cheat and cut the ROM

The only problem with seated GM's is that when you go a bit heavy you effectively have to do a box squat too and if you do them at the end of a heavy leg session it kills.

I have seen standing GM's done down to pins too but have never tried it myself.

Marks1972 wrote:chased a sandwich van up the street as i wanted a yorkie and he was driving away.. i didnt catch him,

That right there my friend is reason enough to do more cardio. Better CV fitness=sandwich.

I have been told that with a GM you should no go over about 20kg as your hamstrings wont take any load higher than that and your back then does all the work. However I have always thought it was a complete posterior chain exercise so I have just put a heavy load on as I think the person who told me is wrong.

Am i right to ignore this person?

Coop_de_Ville wrote:I have been told that with a GM you should no go over about 20kg as your hamstrings wont take any load higher than that and your back then does all the work. However I have always thought it was a complete posterior chain exercise so I have just put a heavy load on as I think the person who told me is wrong.

Am i right to ignore this person?

Yes.

The hams won't suddenly not work when the weight is above 20kg. And surely 20kg is totally dependent on the size/strength etc etc of the person anyway. Silly person.

GMs are indeed a posterior chain exercise; they do hit the hams hard and also the lower back.

I think you know how wrong he is CDV

If hamstrings cant handle more than 20kg (everyones hamstrings handle the same weight?) then we all better stop wide stance squatting and sumo deadlifting, not to mention doing RDLs, SLDLs, pullthroughs etc

what a mook

mook

haha "I'm not paying coz that guys a fookin mook!" Good line.

I was very dubious of this but never want to totally ignore some ones opinion until further informed unless its some gym monkey, this fella was a sports coach though so got to at least look into it.
Thanks boyos

I would love to be able to do GMs. With the safety rack broken in my gym I can’t actually get much more than 20kg in the right position because I can’t get it up there in the first place...but I always though that strengthening the weak areas was important, not just leaving them out. Of course form is vital, especially for something as notoriously easy to injure as your back.

It’s a shame more people aren’t trained how to do them imo.

Great post Mark.

how low do you go with them?

I aim for parallel. No lower though. Of course as the weight increases the ROM decreases. So long as it's not a stupidly small ROM I'm ok with this. So perhaps between 70-90 degrees (guesstimate).

They sound good

Same here, to // and i set a safety just below, a couple of times ive let it touch down on the safetys, paused then exploded up with it which is fun in a bun.

health4ni wrote:I aim for parallel. No lower though. Of course as the weight increases the ROM decreases. So long as it's not a stupidly small ROM I'm ok with this. So perhaps between 70-90 degrees (guesstimate).

That's why I like to go down to pins- Forces you to not cheat on the ROM - Also if you've got a bit over optimistic on the weight, you can bail out safely.

the other cheat I've seen is people effectively doing something more akin to a squat rather than a proper GM - As you go heavier some bending of the legs is inevitable for balance - But please don't turn it into a squat

EDIT - Ah just realised Marks posted the same

Any links to vids of proper good form on both standing and seated GM's?

I can't use pins where I currently train. Hopefully in a month or two I shall be able to

There is actually an exercise called "Romanian Front Squat". Where when you reach your sticking point on the way up you push the hips back which kind of gets you into a GM position. And funnily enough, it's often the position people get into when they try and lift too heavy a weight for Front Squats (or they haven't got the technique sorted).

Interesting. I shall have to start throwing these in.

Tbh i disagree with Ader on his view that "gm's are essential if you want to up your squat and dead". I don't GM but i do heavy abs normally twice a week and this counters the use of GM's imo. Not saying its a useless exercise in the grand scheme of things, but imo its not neccessary to continually add poundage to sq and dl.

Frio3535 wrote:Tbh i disagree with Ader on his view that "gm's are essential if you want to up your squat and dead". I don't GM but i do heavy abs normally twice a week and this counters the use of GM's imo. Not saying its a useless exercise in the grand scheme of things, but imo its not neccessary to continually add poundage to sq and dl.

Maybe 'essential' was overstating it perhaps 'important' would have been a better choice of word - I do think it's difficult to continually add pounds to your squat/DL's if you don't do some back work at some point - Ok you don't need to do them all the time but a strong back gives a solid base and when you're 1 RMing that's gopt to help surely

Having said all that I skipped them today when I trained as I was just to tiredt after squatting and DLing to do GMs

I do Ab work too which I also think is important - You need a strong core too

Right some random kid at the gym told me that you shouldn't go over 40kg on goodmorning's, he was relatively stacked but i spyed him reading a shit muscle mag and doing and ab routine from it whilst in the gym so i immediately disregarded his opinion. However maybe my form was off, I basically do it like an RDL with the bar on my back, small bend in the knees and shove the ass back. Is this right? or should i be doing them more straight legged?

20 degree bend at knee and feet a bit wider than shoulder width.

I've used them in the past to good effect, they can certainly help strengthen the lower back. Thing is like most exercises you can get real strong with them. Some of the weights I've seen guys doing GM's with just makes me

Seriously when it starts getting to that point.... is it worth it? When I tweaked my lower back with them I just decided stick to RDL's and deadlifts.

I love GMs. It's really helped with my DLing and my biggest problem with that was lifting my butt to quick and pulling with my back. As my lower back and hammies are a lot stronger now my DL has improved muchly. I also just love GMs. Rob, that boy was completely wrong, if I can do 60kg 4sec neg GMs with no back problems you certainly can do more than 40kg.

Alex wrote:20 degree bend at knee and feet a bit wider than shoulder width.

agree.

Try telling those crazy elitefts & Westside Barbell boys not to go over 40kg for GMs! lmao

This ties in with something ive thought a few times...

The advice given by the majority of qualified but not very knowledagle PTs, and health and saftey in the workplace folks is probably a root cause of so many people getting back problems.

99% of peoples backs are just so damn weak as we are disuaded from using them.

Im not saying everyone should chuck 200kg on a bar and start doing rounded back GMs or start raw deadlifting 3x their bodyweight but there has to be a middle ground between what guys like us do that gives us backs of forged steel that can cope with 'bad' form to the mollycoddling most people do with their backs.

Even folks to do 'train' but reglect their backs as they arent part of the night club muscle group end up with a massive imbalance which probably makes them more susceptible to back injury than someone that doesnt train.

Granted you need to build up slowly, but if trained properly i guarantee that people with back issues that are told all this stuff to protect their back, ie basically dont use it, would see better results than all the osteopath,chyropracter,GP,massage etc visits.