good morning! here's how to do one at the gym

Are you new to exercise?

​Yes?  Welcome!  Before you skip ahead to the tutorial, I highly advise you download my free Exercise Guide, designed specifically for the woman who hates exercise, like I used to!

After downloading it, you'll learn about the 5 basic types of exercise and learn how often you need to incorporate each type for maximum results.

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Yes, there is an exercise called a good morning!  This exercise helps to strengthen your entire posterior chain and works similar muscles as a deadlift.  We also need to keep in mind those same skills that a deadlift needs:

1. keeping a straight back
2. keeping your butt out
3. keeping your chest up

A good morning requires a decent amount of flexibility, so if you're feeling a stretch, that's ok, but make sure to stop if it gets to be too much.  Your flexibility will improve over time with this exercise, I assure you!

this is a "functional movement"

All the exercises I explain in my exercise library are what trainers like to call "functional movements".  This means that they require a whole muscle GROUP to be activated, rather than just isolating one muscle.  These exercises tend to get your heart rate up more, and they help to burn more fat and build more muscle!

I use these functional movements as the primary exercises in my workout plans.  If you want a workout plan that is quick, effective and works well at building your curves and confidence, then make sure to check my workout plans out!  There's routines for every schedule, and you will never get bored from doing the same thing each week!

If you want the workouts PLUS in depth coaching for other areas of your life like confidence, healthy habit creation, goal setting and mindset, make sure to check our my confidence coaching that includes the workout plans along with everything else!  

CLICK HERE TO START MY FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT BASED WORKOUT CYCLES

CLICK HERE TO ENROLL IN CONFIDENCE COACHING AND KICKSTART YOUR HEALTH JOURNEY

here's how you set up your good morning:

First, if you have never performed this exercise before, take a second to watch the video above.  When it comes time to do it for the first time, PLEASE try it without any weight.  Alright, here we go!

What I would like you to do is stand with your heels towards a wall, about a foot away from it.  With your hands folded on your chest, hinge your hips back in space and try to touch the wall with your butt.  It's farther back than you think right?  This hinging movement is the basis of the good morning.

Did you keep a gentle bend in your knees?  If so, awesome!  Proceed on to the next step.  If you didn't, try to touch the wall without bending your knees a ton and without locking your knees.  You should feel your weight mostly in your heels rather than the front of your feet.

Try to perform this exercise in front of a mirror to help check your form.  Ideally, you would be able to see something written on the front of your shirt in the mirror as you go up and down.  You do this by keeping your chest up, your shoulders back, and your butt sticking out.  By activating and tightening all those muscles, the entire back side of your body gets strengthened. 

How low can you get your torso?  Depending on your flexibility, you might be able to get it parallel to the ground.  If you can, that's great!  If not, that's ok too, the flexibility will come with time.  Also, I would much rather you perform a shallower good morning than one that requires you to drop your chest in order to get lower.

Once you get the hang of the hinging movement and can perform that for at least 15 reps, it's time to add some weight!  Just like in a squat, you want the bar to sit on the meaty part of your upper back - your traps.  Holding the bar there will require strength in your shoulders and a pretty good range of motion, so take your time and go slow.  Adding the weight also changes your center of gravity compared to performing the exercise without weight, so make sure to build up slowly, if you can find a small bar, that's best to start with!

​Try a few reps and see how it goes, if the weight feels stable on your shoulders, keep going!  Expect to feel soreness from this exercise all the way from your upper back down into your glutes, and even down into your hamstrings.  It really is an awesome exercise, so try it out with your next workout, or use one of my already curated plans!

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