Hinge into a Good Morning and you’ll feel pretty much every muscle in your posterior chain wake up. This small movement looks harmless, but they give RDLs a pretty good run for their money in terms of hamstring (and glute) recruitment. Program some barbell Good Mornings into your routine and you’ll build leg size, strength, and power. Or, grab a resistance band and fire up your hamstrings with a bodyweight version before hitting some heavy deadlifts. This exercise is one of the best and it should be a centerpiece in your training plan.
They can take a while to get the hang of – maybe you've tried them before but struggled to feel them in your hamstrings? Or was it that niggling lower back pain that made you stop? Trust us when we say we’ve been there too! But also trust us when we say that once this movement has clicked, you’ll unlock the ability to build your hamstrings like never before and improve your deadlift, hip thrusts, kettlebell swings, and more while you’re at it.
So grab your morning coffee (or pre-workout) and listen up. We’re going to break down good mornings and go through them step by step. So you can do them with perfect form, and feel them exactly where you should be feeling them.
Looking for more hamstring exercises to add to leg day? Check out our best hamstring exercises
Contents:
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What Are Good Mornings?
Good Mornings are a hip hinge exercise most commonly performed with a barbell in the back rack position. What’s a hip hinge? Well, it’s a way of bending forward from the hips, engaging the hamstrings and glutes whilst maintaining a neutral spine, to minimize strain on the lower back. If you’ve been going to the gym for a while, you’ve probably mastered it already, but if you haven’t, then Good Mornings are a great way to learn and drill the hip hinge, which is essential for exercises such as deadlifts and hip thrusts.
What Are The Benefits Of Good Mornings?
Even if you’ve mastered the hip hinge already, there are many reasons why you should be prioritizing Good Mornings in your leg day sesh.
1. Load Your Hamstrings Whilst Building Your Glutes
Good Mornings are hands down one of the best exercises for targeting the hamstrings and glutes, putting the muscles through a full range of motion in a hip-hinge movement. If you’re building your bum to look even peachier in your lift contour shorts, you may want to pause on the hip thrusts for a moment and give Good Mornings a go…
2. Lift Heavier And Move Faster
But it’s not all about aesthetics: Good Mornings build strength in the hip extension movement and keep the lower back strong which is essential for other lifts such as squats and deadlifts. Lifting not your thing? A powerful hip extension can also boost running, jumping, and sprinting speed.
3. Improve Your Posture
Hands up if you’re guilty of sitting hunched over a computer in the day and stooped over a smartphone in the evening? No one wants to develop a hunched posture, but it’s pretty common due to our day-to-day habits. Good Mornings strengthen the muscles along the spine, encouraging a flat back and helping to stop the shoulders creeping forward.
What Muscles Do Good Mornings Work?
Good Mornings are a serious posterior chain builder [1]. What do we mean by that? Well, they manage to hit all the muscles in the backside of the body, from the upper back, down to the calves. Now that we spend much of our time sitting down, these muscles are not as strong as they should be.
But aren’t Good Mornings a lower body exercise? Technically yes, but the classic Good Morning is loaded using a barbell in a back rack position, which brings the upper body muscles into the mix too.
Good Morning Muscles Worked:
Hamstrings
Glutes
Erector spinae (lower back)
Upper back (rhomboids, traps)
Lats
Core
Calves
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How To Do Good Mornings
Good Mornings look like an easy bend – They’re not. But if you take time to get them right from the start, then you’ll soon get the hang of them. Absolute beginner? Hang tight – we’ll cover everything. Experienced lifter? Feel free to skip through the how-to and instead learn how to refine your form.
1. Master The Hip Hinge
As mentioned, the hip hinge is an essential movement to learn as it’s key in several compound exercises, such as deadlifts, kettlebell swings, power cleans, and of course, the Good Morning. When you’ve got it, it comes naturally, but let’s just say that learning it is a skill that can take time!
Mastering the hip hinge is essential before moving on to performing barbell Good Mornings, so take the time to learn how to move through this bodyweight exercise first.
How To Do A Hip Hinge:
Stand with your feet directly below hips, toes facing forward. Interlace your fingers and place them behind your head.
Stand upright, taking a deep breath into the stomach. Push your hips back, shifting your weight into your heels. Think about pushing a door closed with your butt.
Keeping a neutral spine, lower your torso until you feel a deep stretch in your hamstrings. This will vary from person-to-person depending on mobility, but will generally be to about 45 degrees.
Pause, then reverse the movement, pushing your hips forward and contracting your glutes as you exhale, returning to the starting position.
TIP: The most important thing to remember is that the bend is coming from your hips, not your back. Do not let your back round: instead, keep a neutral spine, and focus your gaze down on the floor ahead of you.
2. Nail the set up
Once you’ve got the hang of the hip hinge it’s time to get set up for Good Mornings.
The most common way to perform these is using a barbell from a squat rack. To do so, you’ll want to set the rack to the height you normally squat at.
TIP: A good test is to stand in front of the barbell and stretch your arms straight out in front of you. They should extend easily above the bar with the barbell resting just under your armpit. If you have to move your arms up to get them over the bar, the bar is too high.
Now it’s time to load up the bar. But hold up – we aren’t going heavy here! In fact, if you’ve never done these before then don’t put any weight on the bar at all – form is the priority. If you’ve practiced Good Mornings a fair few times before, then sure, add some weight on, but don’t be loading these as heavy as your back squat.
3. Let’s Go
All set up? Here’s how to do a barbell Good Morning:
Take hold of the barbell in both hands, just outside of shoulder width. Duck under the bar and rest it on the soft part of your upper back.
Stand up to unrack the bar. Take a couple of steps back from the rig.
Position your in a narrow stance, about shoulder width-wide, with toes pointing forward. Keep a soft bend in the knees.
Take a deep breath into your stomach, pushing your hips back, aiming to get your torso to a 45-degree to 90-degree angle (you should feel a stretch in your hamstrings whilst maintaining a neutral spine).
Pause, before returning to starting position, thrusting your hips forward, squeezing your glutes and hamstrings.
TIP: Only bring your torso forward as far as you can without your back rounding. If your back starts to round, don’t come so low.
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Good Morning Form Tips:
As we said, Good Mornings are not an easy exercise! Follow these tips to perfect your form:
Warm up properly: We know it’s tempting to skip this part to get onto the good stuff, but warming up is important, particularly for Good Mornings where keeping a neutral spine may be challenging and your hamstrings and glutes might be tight. (Try: The Best Leg Day Warm Up Exercises)
Rest the barbell on your upper back, not your neck! If you find this uncomfortable, try squeezing your shoulder blades together and elbow down, gripping the bar to create tension on it. You may also want to try out our best trap exercises to develop those muscles that the bar rests on.
Remember, the butt goes back: This is a hinge, not a squat. Whilst the knees should have a slight bend, you should not be squatting down or excessively bending your knees. Focus on bending at the waist to experience a deep stretch in your hamstrings.
Stay in your range: If you find even reaching 45 degrees without your back rounding a struggle, then don’t push past this, whatever you do! Protecting the back is our priority here, so you must work within your own mobility. The more you practice, the more flexible your hamstrings will become and you’ll find you can reach a little further. In the meantime, check out our best hamstring stretches for tight leg muscles.
Good Morning Sets and Reps: How Many Should I Do?
Barbell Good Mornings are an ideal exercise to use as your main compound movement for leg day. If strength is your goal, keep the rep range low. If it’s hypertrophy, opt for mid-range reps for fewer sets [2].
Strength: 1-5 reps for 3-5 sets at 80-100% of 1 rep max
Hypertrophy: 8-12 reps for 3-4 sets at 60-80% of 1 rep max
Alternatively, you can use Good Mornings as an accessory movement, after your main compound exercise. If this is the case, you could consider adding good mornings into a superset with an exercise that works the anterior chain, such as hack squats or heel-elevated goblet squats.
Also consider using resistance band Good Mornings during your leg day warm up, firing up your hamstrings and glutes to prime them for lifting.
Good Mornings Vs RDLs: What’s The Difference?
Romanian deadlifts: A big compound exercise that builds the hamstrings along with the other posterior chain muscles. On paper, they look pretty similar to Good Mornings: Hip-hinge? tick. Hamstring recruitment? Tick. Barbell? Tick.
The key difference is, of course, the bar placement.
Whereas in Good Mornings, we see the bar placed on the back, during RDLs, the lifter grips the bar in front of them. The effect of this is that Good Mornings recruit the back muscles to a greater extent, whereas RDLs more intensely target the glutes and hamstrings. Oh, and RDLs will build grip and forearm strength, too, of course.
Whilst grip may be your strength downfall on RDLs, the lower back will limit your loading of Good Mornings. Both are effective posterior chain builders, but don’t expect to lift as heavy for Good Mornings! Oh, and make sure you don’t program them in the same session – we want to give your posterior chain a workout for sure, but not that much of a workout!
That being said, if increasing your deadlift 1 rep max is your goal, Good Mornings can help, building strength in the primary muscle groups recruited in conventional deadlifts and RDLs.
Looking for the best RDL form tips? Read our ultimate guide to Romanian deadlifts
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Good Morning Variations:
Add some variety to your workout and give these variations of the regular barbell Good Morning a go.
Seated Good Mornings
If you suffer from a weak lower back, seated Good Mornings are a great variation to build lower back strength. Yes, you’ll glutes will get less attention, but seated Good Mornings emphasize both lower back and hamstring recruitment. This makes them a great warm-up for heavy back squats, building dynamic flexibility in the hamstrings and priming the lower back to prevent injury.
How To Do Seated Good Mornings:
Set a bench or a box up just behind the squat rack (you should be able to sit on it so that your feet rest flat on the floor). Set the barbell up in the rack (as above) and load up the bar accordingly (or just the barbell alone will be sufficient for many! You’ll want to stay light.)
Place your hands shoulder-width on the bar and duck under it, letting it rest on the soft part of your upper back. Stand to unrack the bar, and then step a couple of steps back until you reach your bench or box.
Sit down, with your feet flat on the floor, slightly wider than shoulder width, toes pointing out at 45 degrees.
Sit upright and take a deep breath into your core. Hinge at the hip, lowering your torso as close to parallel as you can without your back rounding.
Pause, then press through the floor to activate your hamstrings whilst moving your torso back up to starting position.
Banded Good Mornings
Banded Good Mornings are one of our go-to warm up exercises. Why? Because they effectively warm up the posterior chain (particularly the hamstrings), getting the blood flowing through the muscles to prepare them for the workout and help prevent injury. If you’re planning on doing barbell Good Mornings, or any hamstring-loading exercises, such as RDLs, in your main workout, banded Good Mornings are an ideal primer.
(Try pairing these with banded squats for the ultimate resistance band lower body warm-up)
You’ll need a long resistance band for these of medium weight. As we’re using a lightweight, we’ll keep reps on the higher side (15-20 for 3 rounds).
How To Do Banded Good Mornings:
Take a medium-weight long resistance band. Stand both feet on one side of it, hip-width apart, toes facing forward. Duck your head into the loop of the band, resting it on your upper back (traps), and stand up.
Place your hands on the band, just in front of your shoulders. Take a breath in and brace your core.
Push your hips back, keeping a neutral spine as your chest comes forward. Maintain a slight bend in your knees. Bring your torso as close to parallel to the floor as possible without your back rounding. You should feel the load in your hamstrings. (Note: If your back rounds, don’t bring your chest as low.)
Extend your hips back up, squeezing your glutes at the top.
TIP: The concentric portion of the movement (hips extending) should be faster and more powerful. Try to work to a tempo of 2-0-1-0 (2 seconds lowering, 1-second hip extending, with no pause at the top or bottom).
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FAQs
Good Mornings have a bit of a bad rep for being ‘bad for your back’. They’re not. Good mornings actually strengthen your lower back, taking your posterior chain through its full range of motion by hinging at the hip. That being said, there is a risk of back injury with Good Mornings, and you must ensure you practice them with correct form.
The most crucial thing is to not round your back: Make sure you properly brace your core when performing the movement, keep a neutral spine, and only lower your torso as far as you can whilst maintaining a neutral spine. If you’re unsure, make sure you practice the hip hinge steps above first and film yourself if necessary, to master the movement before adding load.
As a beginner, you should not be afraid of the Good Morning. They use a hip hinge movement which may take a little practice to get right at first, but is an essential motion to master: Deadlifts, kettlebell swings, hip thrusts, squats, cleans – and many more – all require a hip hinge. Good mornings are a great way to isolate and train this motion.
As a beginner, you’ll want to start with just your body weight to nail the hip hinge first. Next, move onto resistance band Good Mornings and when you feel comfortable with your form, try adding a barbell.
Yes, but they won’t be as effective at building muscle. Research has proven that activation of hamstrings and spinal erectors (muscles that run along the spine) increases with load [3]. That doesn’t mean Good Mornings aren’t effective without weight, but if you’re training with anything less than 60% of your 1 rep max, you’ll be training more for endurance, rather than strength or hypertrophy. If this is the case, you’ll want to increase the rep range (15+ reps).
That being said, one of the great things about the Good Morning exercise is that it is versatile. If you’re limited on equipment, try banded Good Mornings or kettlebell Good Mornings, holding the handle of the kettlebell over your back, so it rests comfortably in the middle of your shoulder blades. For higher rep ranges, these movements are great as warm up tools or finishers, the latter of which allows you to hit any remaining muscle fibers so you really feel the burn in your hamstrings.
You may have heard the term ‘a weak posterior chain’ being thrown around. Some of our largest and most powerful muscles are included in our posterior chain, and they’re there to hold us upright. Enter modern life and hours of sitting, and we simply don’t need our posterior muscles as much as we used to.
To make matters worse, many people fixate on training what they can see in the mirror – the anterior muscles – chiseling their abs to get a six-pack, or loading up their quads to fill their 6-inch shorts. The result? Weak glutes, poor movement in the hips, and back pain.
Exercises such as Good Mornings, RDLs, and barbell rows work to develop the posterior chain. If you spend a large portion of your day sitting down you may well have a weak posterior chain, but practicing exercises that build your posterior chain will help build strength and a good physique.
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Rise & Shine – Let’s Get Hinging
If you want to build your hammies, don’t hit snooze on Good Mornings. Not only will they give you a solid-looking backside, but they’ll improve overall posterior chain strength, adding pounds to your heavy lifts and help you jump higher and run faster on cardio day. Take the time to learn the basics first, mastering the hip hinge, and then start adding some weight on – you’ll be surprised how quickly you see the progress.
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WRITTEN BY: Alex Kirkup-Lee
Alex is an inhouse Content Writer for Gymshark’s Health & Conditioning categories. A qualified Personal Trainer, CrossFit Level 1 and Functional Fitness Coach, Alex is experienced in training clients from a range of sporting backgrounds. With a passion for functional training, her favorite workout is anything that includes deadlifts, rowing, or wallballs.
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References:
Ross, Steven & Comfort, Paul & McMahon, John. (2023). The Good Morning—Exercise Technique and Exercise Selection Principles. Strength & Conditioning Journal. 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000802.
Schoenfeld, B.J., Grgic, J., Van Every, D.W. and Plotkin, D.L. (2021). Loading Recommendations for Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Local Endurance: A Re-Examination of the Repetition Continuum. Sports, [online] 9(2), p.32. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9020032.
Vigotsky, A.D., Harper, E.N., Ryan, D.R. and Contreras, B. (2015). Effects of load on good morning kinematics and EMG activity. PeerJ, [online] 3, p.e708. doi:https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.708.
