What muscles do good mornings work?

The hamstrings do the work of extending your hips to stand you up, with the glutes assisting. Your lower back holds your torso at an angle for the length of the rep, which is why people mistake it for a back exercise. Measured in 15 trained men, both hamstring and spinal erector activity tended to climb as the load went up.

How low should you go on a good morning?

To roughly parallel with the floor, or wherever your flat back stops, whichever comes first. There is no requirement to reach horizontal, and depth bought by rounding is coming from your spine rather than your hamstrings.

Are good mornings bad for your back?

Not inherently, but they are the least forgiving hinge you can load, because the bar sits on your shoulders where it makes a long lever. Done with a weight you can hold position against, your back holds and your hamstrings work. Done heavy with a rounding back, it is the spine carrying it.

How much weight should you use on good mornings?

There is no percentage rule worth repeating, whatever you have read. Use a weight you can hinge to parallel with and come back from without the back rounding, and that is usually far lighter than people expect.

Should your knees be bent on a good morning?

Slightly, and by the same amount the whole way down. Locked knees put the hamstring at its limit before you have started hinging, which leaves the range to come from your spine.

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Barbell · intermediate · back

Barbell good morning

Also called Barbell good morning, Good mornings.

The short answer

The good morning puts a bar across your upper back like a squat, then hinges you forward at the hips and stands you back up. Your hamstrings extend your hips to bring you upright. Your lower back holds the angle of your torso, and because the bar sits on your shoulders rather than hanging from your hands, it holds a longer lever than any other hinge you own.

How to do it

Step onePlace a barbell across your upper traps as if performing a back squat and stand with feet shoulder-width apart.
Step twoWith your knees slightly bent, hinge forward at the hips, pushing them back as you lower your torso.
Step threeContinue lowering until your torso is approximately parallel to the floor or until you feel a strong stretch in your hamstrings.
Step fourPause at the bottom, then drive your hips forward to return to the upright starting position.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

Your back rounds as you lean forward.

WhyThe hinge has stopped and the spine has taken over. From that point the weight is being carried by your back rather than moved by your hips.

FixSet your ribs down and your chest firm before you lean, and stop the descent the moment the flat back goes. On this lift the useful range ends earlier than you think, and it ends where your position does.

You can only lean a little way before it feels wrong.

WhyThe bar is heavier than the position can hold. The lever is long here, so weight punishes this exercise faster than it punishes an RDL or a deadlift.

FixTake plates off until you can hinge to roughly parallel with a flat back. The measured value in this exercise comes from the hinge, not the number, and the number is the thing most likely to take the hinge away.

Your knees are straight and you feel it entirely in your lower back.

WhyWith the knees locked the hamstring is already at its limit at the knee end, so it cannot give you any more range at the hip. Everything past that comes from the spine.

FixKeep a soft bend in the knees and hold that bend the whole way down, the same as on a Romanian deadlift. Soft, not bending further as you descend.

The bar sits on your neck and it is the neck you notice.

WhyThe bar has been racked too high, on the vertebrae rather than on muscle.

FixPut it where you would for a back squat, across the meat of your upper back with the shoulder blades pulled together to make a shelf for it.

Good morning or Romanian deadlift

Same movement, different place to put the weight, and that one difference decides everything else. On a Romanian deadlift the bar hangs from your hands, so its load line runs straight down close to your legs. On a good morning it sits on your shoulders, so at the same torso angle the weight is much further from your hips.

The practical result is that a good morning is done with far less weight and is far less forgiving. Lose your back position on an RDL and the bar drifts forward; lose it on a good morning and there is nowhere for the bar to go but into a longer lever on your spine.

Neither is the better hinge. The RDL is where you load the pattern heavily. The good morning is where you find out whether you can hold the pattern at all, which is a genuinely useful thing to know and a poor place to be brave.

Your erectors hold, your hamstrings lift

Two things get said about good mornings that we are not going to repeat. The first is that they build your squat and deadlift. Everyone says it, nothing we could find measures it, and a page like this has no business asserting a training transfer nobody has demonstrated.

The second is that this is a lower back exercise. It is not. Your erectors hold your torso at whatever angle you take it to, for as long as you are down there, which is work but not the work the exercise is named for. The hamstrings are what actually extend your hips to bring you back up.

It is also worth saying that this looks like a beginner exercise and is not one. Of all the hinges you can load with a barbell, this is the one that punishes a lost position fastest, because the weight is furthest from your hips. Light and exact beats heavy and approximate here by a wider margin than usual.

What it is for

The barbell good morning is a compound exercise targeting the hamstrings and glutes. By hinging at the hips under a barbell load, it strengthens the entire posterior chain and improves hip hinge mechanics essential for deadlifts and squats.

Questions people ask

What muscles do good mornings work?: The hamstrings do the work of extending your hips to stand you up, with the glutes assisting. Your lower back holds your torso at an angle for the length of the rep, which is why people mistake it for a back exercise. Measured in 15 trained men, both hamstring and spinal erector activity tended to climb as the load went up.
How low should you go on a good morning?: To roughly parallel with the floor, or wherever your flat back stops, whichever comes first. There is no requirement to reach horizontal, and depth bought by rounding is coming from your spine rather than your hamstrings.
Are good mornings bad for your back?: Not inherently, but they are the least forgiving hinge you can load, because the bar sits on your shoulders where it makes a long lever. Done with a weight you can hold position against, your back holds and your hamstrings work. Done heavy with a rounding back, it is the spine carrying it.
Good morning or Romanian deadlift?: Both are the same hinge with the weight in different places. The RDL is where you load the pattern heavily because the bar hangs close to your legs. The good morning is a much lighter exercise that shows you immediately whether your position holds.
How much weight should you use on good mornings?: There is no percentage rule worth repeating, whatever you have read. Use a weight you can hinge to parallel with and come back from without the back rounding, and that is usually far lighter than people expect.
Should your knees be bent on a good morning?: Slightly, and by the same amount the whole way down. Locked knees put the hamstring at its limit before you have started hinging, which leaves the range to come from your spine.