[quote]Mr. Bear wrote:
bigjoey wrote:
Mr. Bear wrote:
bigjoey wrote:
my best good morning (240kg) is actually bigger than my best squat and deadlift (yes my sq and dl are weakass for my BW. embarassing. also probably why my squats always turn into good mornings once i’m out of the hole).
To those who are having trouble going heavy, I’d say get the bar low on your traps and your grip out wide and try to almost mimic your DL form (if you pull conventional). I also find a med stance better than the wide stance.
some people also try to go too low and keep their legs too straight - the pics on elitefts and robertson’s articles here are a good guide; and I remember there was a vid on some site called ‘powerlifting heads up’ or something.
This is ridiculous. NO ONE CAN GOOD MORNING MORE THAN THEY SQUAT. Also, if you could GM more than you squatted, the exact opposite would be true; you would probably never have a problem falling forward in the squat.
Bear
A post from Mike Robertson on the “fix my squat” thread:
“The torso is caving over partially because of the set-up, but also because your legs aren’t strong enough to take the weight - therefore your back is trying to good morning the weight up.” This is my problem exactly. Also, I am talking about a raw (with a belt), not a suited squat. I’m sure I’ve heard of guys doing 700 or 800lbs good mornings who would not raw squat that.
Seriously, who the hell is doing 800lb GMs? Furthermore, even if you could, why would you? I know Jim Wendler squatted a grand, and he said his best good morning was in the 500s. Now, yes, he couldn’t squat a grand raw, but he sure as hell could get over 600.
OK, so say someone does have the problem you have, which is that you’re legs are weak. Still, in the squat you are actually able to use your legs, however weak they are, to help you lift the weight. Therefore, I would think you would be able to at least squat what you could good morning.
I guess my point is that if you can’t squat what you good morning, then you aren’t doing good morning correctly.
Bear[/quote]
Yes, you can use your legs more during a squat, but it’s a longer ROM. There are different ways of doing GMs. Some go all the way down to parallel and use barely any legs; (Mikesell’s workout log usually specifies ‘GMs to Parallel’), and in this case you are right, no one would ever squat more than they GM. However, this is not the only way to do them. If you look at the guy in Robertson’s ‘Erector Set’ article, or in the ‘heavy good morning’ video on Joe Skopec’s websites, this is closer to my form; - above parallel and actually a fair bit of legs. I also use a bit more rounding on the heavier sets. Shoulders are still in front of the knees.
Also, it may not be so much that I am GMing wrong as it is that I am squatting and DLing wrong. The first time I ever did singles was on deadlifts, and I did that for quite a while before going really heavy on squats; so my low back was probably already strong in comparison to my legs. I also started trying out Westside methods early on in my development, which may have been a mistake because I didn’t fully understand how to use them. I gained little from the speed work on the box squat, and knew nothing about squatting technique, other than trying to sit back (it wasn’t until I did a heavy overhead squat that I really understood what that meant). Meanwhile I was using good mornings on 70% of M/E days (as per early recommendations); which meant that I got lots of motor learning and technique perfection with heavy weights on GMs and very little with squats and DLs, which is why those lifts didn’t improve nearly as much. I am trying to correct this now but it is a process.