1. Dumbbell Good Morning Exercise
You can perform the good morning with dumbbells by placing a dumbbell at the top of your back, across the base of your neck, and holding it in position with both hands. This is an excellent good morning variation when you don’t have access to a barbell or when you’re new to weightlifting, and a barbell is still too heavy.
2. Band Good Morning Exercise
In the banded good morning, you use a resistance band instead of a barbell. This makes it a good variation if you train at home or while traveling and have limited space and equipment.
However, because a resistance band offers almost no resistance when it’s slack, there’s little tension on your hamstrings and glutes when stretched. This makes the banded good morning less effective for building muscle than the barbell or dumbbell version, so you should only use it when you don’t have access to gym equipment.
3. Seated Good Morning Exercise
As the name implies, you perform the seated good morning while sitting on a bench. Performing the exercise while seated emphasizes your lower back more than your hamstrings, which is why many weightlifters use the seated good morning to strengthen their lower back so that it isn’t the “weak link” during exercises such as the deadlift and squat.
FAQ #1: Is the good morning a leg exercise or a back exercise?
Both.The barbell good morning trains all of the muscles in your posterior chain. That said, it emphasizes the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back, and is less effective at training the other back muscle.
Thus, if developing your lats, rhomboids, and traps is a priority, you’ll also want to include exercises like the pull-up, chin-up, lat pulldown, and barbell, dumbbell, and cable row in your program.
FAQ #2: Can you do the good morning exercise at home?
Yes.If you prefer to train at home, the best good morning variations are the dumbbell good morning and the band good morning because they require the least equipment and space.
FAQ #3: Are good mornings effective?
Yes.In fact, research shows that the good morning is about as effective at training the hamstring as the deadlift and as good at training the lower back as exercises like the clean, snatch, Romanian deadlift, and row.
