Interesting...Mark Rippetoe on the GoodMorning

Last night while skimming through the section on assistance movements in SS:Ed II, something in the paragraph on goodmornings caught my eye:

"Be careful about using lots of weight and generating high velocities; the goodmorning is an assistance exercise, not a primary lift, and it must be respected for both its usefulness and its potential for injury. The smartest of the strongest men in the world never use more than 225 lbs. for the goodmorning..."

The thing that doesn't make since is why, following this path of thinking, would you even do goodmornings? If there is a "limit" to how strong you can get on a barbell movement it seems pointless to do in the first place. This is why I'm inclined to disagree with Mr. Rippetoe on this.

What do you guys think?

 

It's a great assistant movement. I need to start reimplementing it in to my routine. It also is a movement I don't like going heavy on.

 

The high velocity thing is a good point. Because the barbell leaves the center of gravity, using a high velocity would lead to a very good chance of lumbar flexion and with using large weights could turn out bad.

Also, some people do rounded back GM's. I don't agree with them at all... I have no idea if that's what Mark is referring too. I own Starting Strength but I just don't remember that specifically.

Other than that, I like doing GM's occasionally. I think if the velocity is controlled, the back stays in extension, and the hips go back... it's all good.

 

Good insight, guys.

I agree about the velocity portion, but it seems ridiculous to me that you should stop at 225 lbs. no matter how strong you get. I mean, for a competing powerlifter with a 650+ lb. deadlift...a 225 lb. goodmorning is going to do virtually nothing, IMO.

 

He's referring to the arched-back variety. The dudes at Westside do alot of goodmornings, and I assume they use more than 225.

 

GM's are good assistance, but the potential for fuck ups is a little higher on GM's than on something like floor presses.

Putting a weight cap on it seems silly, but then again, He's Mark Rippetoe, and I ain't.

 

Use bands...

 

Exactly. He knows way more than I do on lifting. But at the same time I just wonder why he puts a cap on the weight which seemlingly makes it useless, as you can not infinitely progress.

 

If this is true, it seems completely reasonable to cap the weight. I read somewhere that the lumbar area loses 40% of its strength the moment it goes into flexion. That's a scary number.

Again though, on those that do GM's with their back in extension.... I don't see a problem with weight.

the_harbinger, do you have his book handy so that you can tell if he's referring to arched GM's or not?

 

Rippetoe advocates VERY CONSERVATIVELY loaded rounded back good mornings as a way to prepare the body for lifting things with your back in less-than-ideal position. The apt example he gives is stone lifting: It's very hard to lift a big stone without rounding your back.

 

(I'm holding Starting Strength right now, and yes, he also advocates conservative loading for flat-backed (i.e. "good" position) GM's. Never more than 35% of max squat, and don't even do them until 35%>95lbs.)

 

XTrainer,

Thanks for clearing that up. I thought that must be the case but I didn't have my copy of SS handy to double check

 

Use bands

 

I don't really understand his point. Some of the American wide stance powerlifters have a really extreme forward lean and it seems that heavy good mornings would be helpful for that kind of squat. I also don't see how you would perform a good morning with 225lbs. so that any 600lbs. squatter or deadlifter would get any benefit out of it, except if you do them for 20 reps as a local hypertrophy thing or just to get some blood flowing.

 

I would think that GM's @ 35% of the squat would be pretty easy for anyone.

 

I agree to a point. Thanks to XTrainer, we have now verified that the 225lb number is attached to GM's with a rounded back. I do believe that the weight should be relatively low on that... if one chooses to do it at all. I, personally, would never perform a GM like that... but then again, I'm not a professional PL or Strongman.

What I'm truly confused about is the 35% figure attached to the Flat-back GM. I think that would be far too easy for any kind of benefit. I mean, who here finds that difficult?

 

35% of 700lbs = 245lbs.

 

So what are you saying? You agree it's easy or not :icon_chee I can do math, Bro.

 

I was referring to

followed by

which gave the impression that the numbers Rippetoe was given were different for flat versus rounded GMs. However, when 225 is the max for rounded and 35% of 700 is 235, I don't see a difference.

 

That seems really light to me. I did some gm's tuesday to work on hamstring and hip development. I think I worked up to 230lbs and my squat is shit now.