Rediscovering the Good Morning

2009 November 26

By Matt

I’ve always hated the Good Morning. It gets a lot of attention from a lot of really strong guys, and because of that advice I’ve tried to give it a fair shake over the years. No matter how much I tried, I was never able to find a way to make this an enjoyable exercise.

Usually I consider not liking an exercise to be a good thing, since that pretty much means you suck at it and will benefit from getting it stronger. That’s not what I mean here. Yeah, it’s awkward if you don’t do them regularly, but it’s not just that. The mechanics of the lift are just weird.

I think that part of the problem was trying to follow what Westside was doing a few years back when they were really pushing them as Max Effort exercises. They seem to have backed off that somewhat lately, although it’s still pretty common to see maxed-out GMs floating around.

For my money, I just can’t do them that way. Maybe with more time and practice, but as it stands for me right now they just aren’t compatible with me when you’re talking maximal attempts. I notice in a lot of cases that I don’t even find my groove until the second or third rep in some cases, even with lighter weights.

I also couldn’t (and can’t) see much point in trying to get really strong on a non-specific lift; that is to say, why am I going to spend that much time and effort getting really strong at a lift that’s not the lift I’m interested in being strong in? And don’t think I didn’t test this, either. The times I did drop deadlifts in favor of pushing up my GM strength only resulted in weaker deadlifts.

This may work for really strong guys, mind you. Maybe if I was pulling up in the 600s, I could get away with only deadlifting under 70% and using GMs as my main exercise. Perhaps that’s something to try in the future if I reach my goal. As it stands as a low/mid 500s puller, I can’t completely get away with it.

I am noticing that as my deadlift goes up, I need to put more effort in other special exercises and weak-point training. I’m doing a lot more back raises, box squats, and low-percentage pulling, with relatively small amounts of heavier deadlift training (which includes deficit pulling and low-rack pulling).

This is what made me decide to give the GM a second look. Instead of using it as a max-effort lift, I decided to throw in lighter sets of 6-8 reps after whatever heavier stuff I’d done for the day. Has it worked? There’s no way to say for sure, but I did get mad soreness in my glutes, hams, and midsection from them. Yeah I know I’m the main one to tell you that DOMS isn’t results talking, but it does indicate that something’s being worked in a novel way, so I take that with the grain of salt it’s worth.

If they’re building up the hammies and glutes and low-back in a way that squats and deadlifts aren’t, then cool. I probably need that kind of strength gain. I think there is something to be said for increasing your volume from special exercises like this, as opposed to just doing higher reps and/or more sets of the main lifts. So maybe that’s where GMs will fit in for me now.

It may also be that as I get stronger and enter real PR territory (not the get back to old lifts PRs I’m setting now), I’ll find that using heavier and even Max Effort GMs will become more beneficial. I do know that high volumes of deadlifts stop being so good for you past a certain weight, so the GM may well be able to pick up that slack as far as strength-building volume for those muscle groups.

I’m also inclined to wonder how much my lack of equipment has colored my outlook. I normally train in commercial gyms, which always have crappy racks and very little choice of barbells. You can choose the crappy bent bar with no knurling, or the crappy bar with no knurling that’s not quite as bent. Things like a cambered bar, SSB, or anything like that which could make the GM a little more painless are just not found. Given that most people at the average gym can’t even figure out how to squat right, that’s not surprising.

Anyways, I’m keeping it simple for now. Just a few sets of 6-8 reps with 100kg, and gradually increasing the weight as I get adjusted to the volume. It’s been doing the trick.