I’ve mentioned my gimpy hip on this forum a number of times before, but I wanted to find out several things. First, is there an ideal ratio of ones squat to goodmorning weights? I can do a back squat with crappy form to parallel with about 450, and I can do goodmornings, with my upperbody going to just above parallel and only a slight bend in my knees with 405. I suspect that my goodmornings are so close to my squats, because my hip hurts badly when I squat down, bending at the knee, hip, and waste, but in Goodmornings, where I mostly just bend at the waste, my hip barely hurts at all.
Secondly, if my goodmornings are too close to my squat, but my hip hurts too much to squat these days, am I building a problematic imbalance by continuing to work on my goodmorning? Or will the increased strength from GMs eventually just help my squat (assuming my hip is one day better)?
Finally, I like to do my max effort goodmornings for triples, but I go deeper on each rep: that is, the first rep is really just a partial, and then, as I build up courage over several reps with p.r. weight, I finally try to go to parallel. I am wondering if anyone else does their max effort work this way, and if anyone sees any problems with it (it does seem a little cowardly).
My backround is with Olympic Lifting, so my answer may be a bit different than what you are looking for. The best research that I have seen was done by the Russians with their lifters. Good Mornings were trained at up to about 60% of the athletes best Clean max. The athletes best Clean max should normally be about 80% of their best squat max to be in a good lower body structural balance. So, if you break down the percentages, a good training weight on Good Mornings should be at about 45%-50% of your squat max. So my answer to you would be that I think you’re training with an excessive load on GM’s. You may want to focus more on hip extension for your lower body training workouts. Again, this is coming from an Olypic Lifters perspective, so the percentages may be a tad off when comparring to a Power Lifting program, but I think that training more on squats and less on the bend-over exercises will bring you into a better lower body structural balance.
Your suggestion sounds correct, but the problem is that I can not seem to do hip extension exercises with much weight, without hurting my hip. So, I could either stick to using very light weights (like 225 and less) in my squats, until my hip feels better (whenver that might be), or I can keep improving the GM, but possibly at the cost of exacerbating some imbalance…
floobadoo, i’m wondering what your best squat was and what you currently deadlift. A 405 good morning sounds incredibly strong for the 450 squat. Also realize that the good morning is much more difficult to perform compared to the deadlift because of the torque of the weight at the bottom position. laters pk
OK, so what can you do for a full squat ATG with awesome form? I’m far from an expert (the line of expertise is a bloody dot to me) but I’d suggest working on full squats with a weight you can handle. 225 might be light for going to parallel, but it might strain you for the full squat.
405 good morning with a 450 squat? Something is wrong there.
Try and find a real solid lifter to critique your form on both lifts. If you cant find some one you trust to help you(and most of us know what that is like in the chrome and spandex gyms), try to post a video of both lifts here.
For comparison, my good morning weight is around 50 to 60% of my heavy squat weight(doubles and triples). This is pretty standard I think, with some of the monster squatters(800 lbs plus) working with Good Mornings around the weight you currently use.
A number of you are responding to me as if I did not know that something was wrong. I have seen doctors for my hip and they are not much help, and I hope to see an ART practitioner someday, and maybe get this thing healed. I should try to be more consistent in stretching my hip flexors etc. For the time being, however, I would like to increase my squat and deadlift strength, but I can only train these movements prety infrequently, because when I do exercises which require me to push with my legs while bending at my hip joint, my left hip (actually, the spot where my ass meets my hamstring) hurts a lot. A few weeks ago, I was working on deep front squats, wearing slightly loose squatting briefs for protection, and I worked up to 350 for a good double and fairly little pain. Later that week I deadlifted 515, and since then my hip has not really seemed fit for any squat work. I plan to go back to squat type exercises, when my hip starts hurting less, but until then, I am hoping it is safe to keep training goodmornings and/or stiff leg deadlifts. By the way, I could stiff leg deadlift (with a slight bend in the knee)415 for two, but it has been a while since I have tried these. I hear that powerlifters hurt their hips all the time, and I was hoping to hear from one of them if this is what they would do.
keep in mind that most PL guys recommend heavy DLing every 10-14 days or so. (probably similar recs for heavy squatting?) are you overdoing it?
also have you checked out the “get your butt in gear” program here on T-mag? i have had a chronically f*ct lower back for over ten years due to tight hips / glutes / hams but finally decided to figure out what the dealio is and am now making great strides by applying that program.
Until you have an opportunity to see an ART doc, or if you don’t have the bucks, you can try self-massage by sitting on the floor with a softball under your glute-hammie tie-in and rolling it around the areas that are sore. Linger at each sore sport to see if the tightness will ease. Do this every day. You can also try using a foam roller on your IT band if your hip is sore.
Good tip She-ra, for deep tissue massage I like to lay on the floor and have my girl walk all over my back, glutes, and hamstrings. Whenever I have any aches that usually takes care of it.
I have checked out the articles, and I have tried the massage. The massage seems to make things worse when I do it right on my glute hamstring region, but it helps a lot on the IT band. I think it would work even better if i could find a way to massage the IT band with more force.
You mentioned how your good mornings go deeper with each rep, and the first is only really a partial.
My advice would be to try suspended good mornings - hang the loaded bar from a very strong rope around a rack. Set it up at your parallel position. Best put the pins an inch below that, in case the rope or knot isn’t what it should be. You get under the weight, position it comfortably, stick your ass back then lift from the bottom. Restart each rep by resting it on the ropes at the bottom.
This will feel much harder than you’re used to. This really builds starting strength, and you get no stretch reflex as you do on the normal good-morning. It also ensures you keep a proper ROM.
You can also set this up for partial GMs, which one of my training partners gets better results on.