How to Do a Good Morning Exercise: Form, Mistakes and Progressions for Beginners

To do a good morning, stand tall with your arms crossed over your chest or a bar on your upper back, soften your knees, push your hips back and lower your chest with a flat back until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, then drive your hips forward to stand up. It is a simple hip hinge that strengthens your hamstrings, glutes and lower back, and beginners should learn it with bodyweight or a broomstick long before loading a barbell.

The name is often said to come from the way it looks like a polite bow. This guide covers form, mistakes, progressions, sets and reps, and why runners benefit.

What is a good morning exercise?

A good morning is a hip hinge. Your hips move back and forth like a door hinge while your spine stays long and your knees stay only slightly bent. In the classic version a barbell rests across your upper back, in the same spot as a back squat.

It moves much like the Romanian deadlift. The difference is where the weight sits: in an RDL you hold it in your hands, in a good morning it sits on your back. A 2024 technique review in the Strength and Conditioning Journal describes the good morning as an alternative to the RDL for the back of the body, and notes it may suit lifters whose grip stops them holding a bar. Our guide on how to do a Romanian deadlift is a great companion to this one.

What muscles does a good morning work?

• Hamstrings, which lengthen under load as you bow forward and help pull you back up.
• Glutes, which drive your hips forward to stand.
• Spinal erectors, the long muscles either side of your spine, which hold your back still.
• Adductors, calves, upper back and core, which steady your hips, keep your feet planted and hold the bar in place.

When you lean forward, a bar on your back ends up a long way in front of your hips, so it feels far heavier than the plates suggest. That is why good mornings are done much lighter than squats or deadlifts.

How do you do a good morning, step by step?

Practise with bodyweight first, arms crossed over your chest. If your hands go behind your head, never pull on your neck.

• Stand tall. Feet about hip-width apart, toes forward or turned out a touch.
• Brace. Breathe into your belly and gently tighten your core.
• Soften your knees. Unlock them slightly and keep that same small bend for the whole rep.
• Push your hips back. Imagine closing a car door behind you with your bum. Your chest tips forward as your hips travel back.
• Keep your back long. Head in line with your spine, eyes on the floor a little way ahead.
• Stop at the stretch. Lower until your hamstrings feel a strong stretch, or until you cannot keep your back flat, whichever comes first.
• Drive your hips forward. Squeeze your glutes and breathe out as you stand tall, without leaning back at the top.

What are the key form cues to remember?

• Hips back, not down. If your hips sink towards your heels, you are squatting.
• Shins nearly upright. Almost all the movement comes from your hips, not your knees.
• Three seconds down. The slow, controlled stretch is where much of the work happens.

What are the most common mistakes, and how do you fix them?

Why should beginners start light?

The leverage that makes the good morning effective also makes it easy to overdo, and the movement changes as the bar gets heavier. A 2015 study in PeerJ had 15 experienced male lifters do good mornings at 50 to 90% of their maximum. As the load rose, their knees bent more, from about 17 degrees to about 25 degrees, while hamstring and lower back muscle activity generally went up. It was a small study in trained lifters, but for a beginner, a light load you can move the same way every rep is the better choice.

What are the easier and harder versions?

Move up a rung when 3 sets of 12 feel controlled with a flat back, and step back down if your form slips.

• Rung 1, wall hinge. Stand with your heels about a foot from a wall and push your hips back until your bum taps it.
• Rung 2, broomstick hinge. Hold a broomstick along your spine, one hand behind your neck and one behind your lower back. Keep it touching your head, upper back and tailbone as you hinge. If a gap opens, your back is rounding.
• Rung 3, bodyweight good morning. Arms crossed, slow three-second lowers.
• Rung 4, band good morning. Stand on a long loop band and hook the other end around the back of your shoulders. It gets harder as you stand, which teaches a strong hip drive.
• Rung 5, light barbell. An empty or light fixed bar, taken from a squat rack set at about chest height with the safety arms in place.
• Rung 6, loaded or paused barbell. Add small jumps, such as 2.5 kg, only when every rep looks the same, or hold the bottom for two seconds with less weight.

Good morning or Romanian deadlift: which should you do?

For most beginners, the RDL is the main hinge and the good morning is a useful partner. A 2014 study of 12 weight-trained men compared the leg curl, good morning, glute-ham raise and RDL, and found hamstring activity was highest in the RDL and glute-ham raise. The good morning still earns its place when your grip tires first or you want variety.

Pick one main hinge per session rather than stacking good mornings, RDLs and deadlifts together. Once your hinge is solid, our guide on how to deadlift properly shows where the pattern leads next.

How many sets and reps should you do?

For most beginners, 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps, once or twice a week, is plenty. Rest 60 to 90 seconds between sets and finish each set with two or three reps in the tank. Spend the first week or two with bodyweight or a broomstick, even if it feels easy, and expect sore hamstrings for a day or two after your first sessions.

The UK Chief Medical Officers' guidelines advise building strength on at least two days a week. A good morning makes a great hinge in a simple full-body session alongside a squat, a push, a pull and a core exercise.

Why are good mornings good for runners?

Every stride needs your hamstrings and glutes to swing your leg through and drive your hip back. Many runners have strong quads but under-trained hamstrings.

• Strength through a long range. The slow lowering phase loads your hamstrings as they lengthen, a job they do on every stride.
• A clean hip hinge. It carries over to kettlebell swings, deadlifts and simply picking things up.
• A steady trunk. Holding a long back while your hips move is a similar skill to keeping good posture late in a run.
• A step towards better running economy. A 2024 review in Sports Medicine found heavier strength training, plyometrics and mixed methods may improve running economy in middle- and long-distance runners, while lighter loads seemed less effective. Light good mornings are a first step, not the finish line.

If the back of your thighs often feels tight on runs, our guide to tight hamstrings for runners explains why strength usually helps more than stretching alone.

What does a 4-week good morning plan look like?

Do two sessions a week, with at least one easy or rest day between them. If you already hinge well, start at week 2.

If week 4 feels comfortable, repeat it, adding reps first and then a little weight.

How do good mornings fit into a hybrid week with running?

• Pair them with easy days, ideally not the day before a long run or a hard session.
• Run first on double days if running is your priority.
• Keep hard leg days apart. Avoid heavy hinging and leg-heavy HIIT on back-to-back days.
• Ease off before races. In race week, drop to one light set or leave them out.

A plan that treats running, strength and HIIT as one helps here, so your strength days support your runs instead of competing with them. Edge Pro builds a fully personalised plan around your goals, ready within 24 hours, with a real coach you can message anytime about your form or a busy week.

This article is general guidance, not medical advice. If you are new to exercise, returning from injury, or managing a health condition, speak to your GP before starting, and see a physio for any niggle that does not settle.