Exercise Technique - The Good-Morning
By Jeff Vossen
Help clients create a firm behind and strong back.
Want to jumpstart your clients’ core training? Then try a set of good-mornings. This exercise can help improve physical performances and creates a strong foundation for the back.
Target muscles
The good-morning strengthens and improves the coordination of the muscles in the posterior chain; these include the lower back, gluteals and hamstrings. The glutes and the hamstrings are responsible for hip extension while the muscles of the lower back contract statically to maintain proper posture and add power to the core.
How to do it
1. Stand with the feet shoulder-width apart, holding a light barbell across the shoulders and behind the neck.
2. Place the hands just wider than shoulder-width apart with the palms facing forward; be sure the hands are equidistance from the centre of the bar
3. Keep the head up, shoulders back and over the hips, chest out and hips slightly flexed. Slightly bend the knees and shift the weight to the heels.
4. Without changing the spinal alignment, take a deep breath and slowly lean forward from the hips until the upper body is roughly parallel to the floor (or as far as the body can go while maintaining the upper body posture).
5. Maintain a neutral cervical spine throughout the movement; look forward at the top of the movement and down at the bottom of the movement.
6. Reverse directions, and exhale while raising the torso back to the starting position.
Coaching Tips
* Bending over to pick something up can be dangerous if done with a rounded back. Therefore, the biggest caution for this exercise is to not let the back round. If your client’s back looks like a question mark, lower the weight, or reduce the range of motion and have him lean only as far as he can while maintaining proper form.
* Isometrically contracting the rhomboids and trapezius may help to maintain proper shoulder alignment.
* Physics tells us that as the body flexes forward at the hips, the forces on the low back increase as the angle at the hips decreases. Therefore, move your client slowly throughout this range of motion, and begin with a light weight to minimize the risk.
Alternative Exercises
To mimic the synergistic motion of the good-morning, you can choose prone back extensions, dead lifts, supine pelvic lifts (bridges), standing kickbacks, or prone hip extensions.
Practicing a variety of different exercises that stimulate the same muscle groups is a key ingredient in periodized exercise programming.
Remember, the back is a tower of power, and glutes and hamstrings are muscles we don’t want to leave behind.
Jeff Vossen, M.Sc, certified exercise physiologist, kinesiologist, coach and personal trainer with merit, is St. Francis Xavier University’s coordinator of the Fitness & Recreation Program. He also serves as a part-time faculty member in the University’s Department of Human Kinetics. Jeff has been published in numerous refereed and professional journals and has presented at many national and international conferences.
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