Whether you’re an A.M. or a P.M., good mornings can be done any time of the day! Never heard of them? At its most basic, the good morning exercise is a hip hinge. Here’s a visual: Think of getting out of bed in the morning. When you get out of bed, you plant your feet on the floor, then brace your midline before shooting your hips through to stand. Pretty simple. But for those of you who roll out of bed, think instead about the first half of a deadlift when you break at the hips and bend forward.

However, you interpret the movement, good mornings are a great part of a workout routine, and get programmed at Success Studio because:

TARGET YOUR POSTERIOR CHAIN
While good mornings primarily strengthen your glutes and hamstrings, they also strengthen all the other muscles in the posterior chain (the muscles along the backside of the body), such as the upper back, lats, and calves.

HELP PREVENT INJURY
Good mornings are a great move for injury prevention, and their effect on the aforementioned posterior chain is the most important perk. To explain, the problem with a weak posterior chain is that other muscle groups are forced to compensate for that weakness, and when that happens, the risk of injuries like plantar fasciitis, knee injuries, pulled hamstrings, and low back injuries all skyrocket. Having a go-to exercise to activate these overlooked muscles, then, is crucial.

IMPROVE FUNCTIONAL FITNESS
Good mornings mimic motions you'd do during everyday tasks (they have a functional movement pattern). If you can't properly do a good morning, the odds that you'll injure your lower back doing day-to-day movements — like putting groceries away or tying your shoelace — goes way up.

Ready to give them a try?

A. Stand with feet hip-width apart, toes pointed forward, knees softly bent. Hands should be either straight down, crossed over chest, or resting on back of head.

B. Brace midline and simultaneously hinge at hips and push butt straight back, keeping lower legs perpendicular to the floor.

C. Maintaining a flat back, continue to lower torso toward the floor until noticing a stretch in hamstrings or until back begins to round.

D. Press into feet and drive through hips to reverse the movement, using hamstrings and core to stand upright. Squeeze glutes at the top.

Note: While you eventually want to work toward hinging your torso forward until it's parallel with the ground, you might not be able to do that at first (likely due to hamstring tightness and/or core weakness). But the stronger you get, the more you’ll able to tweak the movement by holding a weighted barbell.

The good morning exercise is super beneficial, but when done incorrectly, it carries a high risk of injury — especially when loaded. Adding weight can cause an injury like a disc herniation or bulge if your movement pattern isn’t sound. That's why everyone should get the okay from a trainer on their form doing the classic, unweighted good morning exercise before adding weight. The certified personal trainers at Success Studio are here to help you master the good morning exercise. Just click the button below for a complimentary assessment, which can take place in the A.M. or the P.M.!