Jul 6, 2017Wake Up Time
Have you noticed that your athletes are hitting a strength plateau when it comes to squats and deadlifts? If so, you might want to consider adding a new exercise to your weightroom regime — the barbell good morning. As a hip hinge exercise with motions similar to the squat and deadlift, the barbell good morning will help athletes bust through this plateau, while also gaining many other benefits.
According to an article for Stack.com by Andy Haley, CSCS, the barbell good morning challenges the back and core in ways that other exercises do not. This increases athletes’ power and addresses problem areas when it comes to other movements.
“When most people are squatting and deadlifting, it should be their legs that get you first, but it rarely is,” says exercise physiologist Joel Seedman. “It’s usually their low back, upper back or spinal stabilizers. If your back has a tendency to give out, Good Mornings are one of the best exercises to address that.”
Movement for this exercise is driven through the glutes and hamstrings, strengthening the posterior chain. For athletes, these are the muscles that are necessary for many sport specific skills like jumping, sprinting, and even throwing a ball.
But the benefits of the good morning extend beyond strengthening the posterior chain. In an article for elitefts, Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes explains that this exercise also helps to train the proper hip hinging motion that is needed in many weightroom exercises. It also increases balance, as athletes are required to keep themselves firmly grounded throughout the entirety of the movement.
While the good morning has many benefits, if done incorrectly it can injure your athletes. For that reason, it is best if you do not implement this exercise with athletes who are beginners in the weightroom.
“You’re most at risk for an injury at the bottom of a rep when your torso is closest to parallel,” writes Haley. “In this position, the weight of the barbell places significant stress on your back. If you know how to properly stabilize your back, then it’s not much of a concern. If your technique or strength is lacking, then it’s a sure-fire way to injure your spine.”
In order to make sure your athletes do not injure themselves, Haley offers a step-by-step process for performing the barbell good morning:
- Stand with your feet between hip and shoulder width.
- Place the bar across your back in either the high (across your traps) or low (across the rear delts) bar position.
- Grip the bar tightly, pull it into your body, take a deep breath and tighten your core.
- Begin the movement by breaking at your hips.
- Continue pushing back with your hips until your torso is about 15 degrees above parallel.
- At the bottom of the movement, your shins should stay vertical and your knees should be slightly bent.
- Push your hips forward and drive upwards.
- Exhale when you reach the top of the movement.
When choosing either high- or low-bar position, it’s all about preference. Haley explains that the low-bar position makes the exercise a bit safer, but that the high-bar position will add some more work for the hamstrings and lower-back muscles
During the exercise, both Haley and Cortes stress the importance of bending the knees. Cortes explains that keeping the legs straight will place more stress on the lumbar spine and will not train the hinge pattern correctly.
How do you implement the good morning into your athletes’ workout? For Cortes, there is a specific regimen to this when it comes to the majority of athletes, which involves higher reps and using the exercise as a secondary movement.
“I prefer to start good mornings with approximately 0.5 x bodyweight, done in sets of 6 to 10 reps for 2 to 4 sets,” he writes. “From there, progression would be very gradual. I rarely will increase the load more than biweekly in the beginning of the program.”
“Since it is a demanding movement, I generally program it on a dynamic or repetitive effort lower body day (after the working sets of the main exercise have been done),” he continues. “My rationale for this is simply that good mornings are always a hard exercise on the back and hips, and that programming them on a max effort day is more stress than I would like to put on my athletes.”
To see the barbell good morning in action, check out this video from personal trainer Nick Tumminello.
