maratoolGood Morning
How to do the good morning
- Begin with a bar on a rack at shoulder height. Rack the bar across the rear of your shoulders as you would a power squat, not on top of your shoulders. Keep your back tight, shoulder blades pinched together, and your knees slightly bent. Step back from the rack.
- Begin by bending at the hips, moving them back as you bend over to near parallel. Keep your back arched and your cervical spine in proper alignment.
- Reverse the motion by extending through the hips with your glutes and hamstrings. Continue until you have returned to the starting position.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the hamstrings, which extend the hip and bend the knee, frequently at both joints in the same repetition.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders; the glutes finish hip extension; the lower back keeps the spine from rounding.
Every exercise for:HamstringsAbdominalsGlutesLower back
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under powerlifting — the squat, bench and deadlift family and their accessory work. Technique is judged by whether it survives a near-maximal single, not merely by whether the weight moves.
What you need
A barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.
Every exercise using:Barbell
These train the hamstrings too, using equipment this one does not:
- Hamstring-SMRfoam roll
- Inchwormbody only
- Kettlebell Dead Cleankettlebell
- Lying Leg Curl Machinemachine
- Stiff-Legged Dumbbell Deadliftdumbbell
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 86 hamstrings exercises in this database, 35 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.