Good morning squat form

[Denis54321]

Most of us have seen this on squats. Hips shoot up faster than chest, squat turns into a good morning essentially. I've searched around for answers on this, and what the cause is, but answers have been very inconclusive. So I'd like your thoughts. Why do some people's squats turn into gm's?

Note: Insert the word "weak" before "upper back" on option #2 and option #4. Just for clarity.

[brotein1992]

Never seen a better good morning squat than pete rubish

[FNG37]

A Russian's perspective

[mcapote3]

layne norton envy

[ErickStevens]

When I used to GM my squats it was because of a weak core.

layne norton envy

Layne's squat technique has improved a ton in the last year or so.

[Andre17]

It really depends on the body, bio mechanically there could be no weak muscles but someone who typically has longer legs low bar squating usually have to make a larger moment arm between the hips and midfoot/bar path region. This causes the folding of the chest or "good morning" but this is just an accommodation that the body does with long femurs.

But if the person just folds over and hips shoot all the way up and they are still bent over, id say core wasn't properly braced and maybe hip flexors

[tongueinteeth]

I would say none of the above.

Your core needs to keep your chest up.

If the chest doesn't stay up then the hips and chest won't rise at the same pace.

[sheed30]

I would attribute it to weak core

[tonenotbulk]

Weak quads, usually. People sometimes think it's because the quads are too strong because knee extension occurs first in the 'good morning' squat. But if you watch the bar, it doesn't move much until the hips have shot up, meaning that the quads aren't doing much 'real' work. Reason being that the quads were simply re-positioning the body into that particular individual's strongest position.

[ahox]

This happens because the weight gets fukin heavy. The weight doesn't give a fuk how strong your core or your quads are, if it is heavy enough it is going to want to chop you in half. The answer (as it usually is) is to just get stronger overall. As a beginner, 135 might try to chop you in half but as you get your squat up to 250, 135 stops becoming a hassle and you can maintain proper form without turning it into a good morning.

[Requitor]

I would definitly say a weak core. Once I get gased on my last reps and can't hold my breath anymore I am bowing like the emperor just walked by.

[kaleida]

Most of us have seen this on squats. Hips shoot up faster than chest, squat turns into a good morning essentially. I've searched around for answers on this, and what the cause is, but answers have been very inconclusive. So I'd like your thoughts. Why do some people's squats turn into gm's?

Note: Insert the word "weak" before "upper back" on option #2 and option #4. Just for clarity.

I honestly don't think it matters why it happens - we could argue all day about which muscle is weak. It takes a lot more than one muscle to stay upright in a squat, and people have different limb lengths and different histories, so they can see this pattern for different reasons.

I think the only important things are A) should you fix it? and B) how to fix it?

Should you fix it - it just depends on the person. Some people can move more weight in their 1RM when they avoid good morning - other people can move more weight if they do it. So do some heavy singles and figure out one applies to you right now.

How to fix it - do a squat variation that punishes you for doing good mornings - or at least gives you obvious feedback when you do it. Like front squats with a clean grip - instant wrist pain or bar weight pressing on the wrists if you do a good morning on the way up. If squat volume is already high then you can remove some of your good-morning squat volume and replace it with front squat volume - if not then just add front squats on top of what is already there.


Personally I'm in the "I can move more weight if I avoid good morning in a 1RM" camp but was having trouble avoiding it in my volume work. A few months ago I switched to getting more volume from front squats than I do from my main squat variation - doing larger sets with front squats and just occasional singles with my competition squat variation - my squat and deadlift both responded very well to that change.

[brudman]

For me it's been core and glutes. Focusing on strengthening/activating my abs and glutes has kept me pretty upright.

[Muzzlrpress]

Missing core option.

[Denis54321]

Very insightful. So many people are saying it's a weak core. Could anyone explain to me the exact mechanics behind this?

[kaleida]

Very insightful. So many people are saying it's a weak core. Could anyone explain to me the exact mechanics behind this?

If you get a real scientific answer to that, from this website, I will be amazed. While they're at it I'd love a a real scientific explanation of why leg drive helps bench press

The best I can offer is: do some front squats and force yourself to avoid good morning in a front squat - see what burns. "Burn" might not even be related to which muscles are weak, but it's a fun experiment anyway. At first it was my quads, lately it's my abs. Someone else might do the same experiment and feel completely different muscles complaining because their limb lengths and their training history are different from mine. That's why I just jump straight to recommending the fix instead of trying to diagnose which muscles are weak. If you do a squat variation that forces you to stay upright and punishes you for leaning forward or shooting your butt back, your weakness will be covered regardless of what it was.

[STT816]

if you have read starting strength for low bar squats mark actually recommends focusing on bringing the hips up first and the chest will follow...

looks like layne took his advice, it's the mechanics of a squat....i'm not talking about chest completely down
http://70sbig.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/squats.jpg
this is the commonly used picture to demonstrate, low bar on right

so if you're doing a high bar it really shouldn't look like a good morning because your chest is in a more upright position as opposed to low bar

[Denis54321]

Mark recommends driving the ass upward, and putting your focus on that. However, that doesn't mean it will drive faster than the chest. They should drive up at the same time.

[fitlover]

More than anything I find this to be a result of poor mechanics and bad lifting habits. Developing a stronger upper back to help keep your chest up as well as increasing your abdominal strength will also help prevent your squat from turning into a GM. But for the most part this can be fixed by adjusting your form as well as your stance (since due to leverages, this can also affect your forward lean).

[Denis54321]

If you get a real scientific answer to that, from this website, I will be amazed. While they're at it I'd love a a real scientific explanation of why leg drive helps bench press

The best I can offer is: do some front squats and force yourself to avoid good morning in a front squat - see what burns. "Burn" might not even be related to which muscles are weak, but it's a fun experiment anyway. At first it was my quads, lately it's my abs. Someone else might do the same experiment and feel completely different muscles complaining because their limb lengths and their training history are different from mine. That's why I just jump straight to recommending the fix instead of trying to diagnose which muscles are weak. If you do a squat variation that forces you to stay upright and punishes you for leaning forward or shooting your butt back, your weakness will be covered regardless of what it was.

I'd like to agree with you on this. How would you respond to the following critiques:

"I'm pretty sure that front squats cannot fix a squat. How can a movement that relies on a vertical back angle at 70% of the load fix a problem caused by a failure to control a much heavier weight at a back angle of ~45 degrees?

And what controls the back angle anyway? Hamstrings control the back angle. The front squat in fact uses hamstrings to control the back angle, and that's why they are in such a contracted position at the bottom. But front squat uses a vertical back angle that places little moment force on the back, so that the hamstrings have much less moment force on the back to deal with. At the back angle used in the squat, hamstrings are loaded much differently than in the front squat, so much so that the front squat does nothing to train this aspect of the squat." -Ripptoe

[Denis54321]

More than anything I find this to be a result of poor mechanics and bad lifting habits. Developing a stronger upper back to help keep your chest up as well as increasing your abdominal strength will also help prevent your squat from turning into a GM. But for the most part this can be fixed by adjusting your form as well as your stance (since due to leverages, this can also affect your forward lean).

Assuming depth is constant, a wider stance will create a shorter moment arm, correct? Do you think widening the stance will fix the gm for that reason?

[kaleida]

I'd like to agree with you on this. How would you respond to the following critiques:

"I'm pretty sure that front squats cannot fix a squat. How can a movement that relies on a vertical back angle at 70% of the load fix a problem caused by a failure to control a much heavier weight at a back angle of ~45 degrees?

And what controls the back angle anyway? Hamstrings control the back angle. The front squat in fact uses hamstrings to control the back angle, and that's why they are in such a contracted position at the bottom. But front squat uses a vertical back angle that places little moment force on the back, so that the hamstrings have much less moment force on the back to deal with. At the back angle used in the squat, hamstrings are loaded much differently than in the front squat, so much so that the front squat does nothing to train this aspect of the squat." -Ripptoe

Fitness is a varied world with varied people, varied problems, and multiple good solutions for any problem. Rippetoe's a cool guy but openness about ideas that didn't come from his book is not one of his strong points. I had to branch out and find a different role model because of that.

He says "I'm pretty sure that front squats cannot fix a squat." - but front squats removed my squat good morning in about 2 weeks. And it was the only variable I changed at the time - after spending 9 months and a lot of frustration looking for a fix on this, I wanted to be 110% sure what finally fixed it, so I was very careful about only changing one thing at a time.

In the 9 months I spent looking for a fix, I asked a lot of other lifters how they fixed this. I got so many varied answers that I had to narrow it down to firsthand info (people who had actually run into the same problem and who had actually fixed it).

- The most common recommendation among people whose issue just magically resolved itself in a few weeks was "just squat more" or "just give it more time." (9 months, though? I was suspicious of this answer.)
- The most common recommendation I found among people who had struggled with a squat good morning for a long time and then fixed it was "front squats."
- The most common recommendation among people who had not personally encountered this issue was "do assistance work for your lower back."
- I also found some people who were happily and successfully good-morninging all their squats, including their 1RMs, because that was the most efficient way for their body to do a competition-legal squat.

Mechanically, why do front squats work for so many people to fix this? I don't pretend to know that. I'd love to have that much anatomical knowledge, but I don't yet.

The articles that finally convinced me to try front squats were Dan Green's "West of Westside" blog post, and another blog post he wrote about how he built his best-ever squat - he talks about his own good morning issue, his squat plateau, and how he fixed it. This was probably the most detailed firsthand info I could find from someone who had really struggled with this and fixed it.
http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/...t-of-westside/
http://jtsstrength.com/articles/2013...-front-squats/

My best guess about why front squats work? In a back squat, you have multiple options to get the weight up, good morning or no good morning ... and if the "no good morning" pathway loses steam at the end of a long set, you can go to plan B and good-morning it ... but in a front squat that's just not an option. In a front squat you have to take the "no good morning" pathway otherwise your wrists will hurt - and that pathway gets stronger because it's getting more practice. I think the wrist pain feedback is important too because that makes it easier to be really strict about "no good mornings allowed" and make adjustments during the lift. I never got that instant feedback from a back squat - I'd always have to look at a video afterwards to see if I was successful avoiding the good morning - but once the set is finished there's no way to tell my body "ignore that set, don't learn from that set, what we just did was wrong" - the work is already done, the groove is already greased.

[Denis54321]

Alright, thanks for your answer. By the way, I checked your log and some of your squat vids. One thing I noticed is that you tend to flare your elbows quite a lot. Have you tried bringing em forward/ more perpendicular to the floor?

[kaleida]

Alright, thanks for your answer. By the way, I checked your log and some of your squat vids. One thing I noticed is that you tend to flare your elbows quite a lot. Have you tried bringing em forward/ more perpendicular to the floor?

Yes, I have tried that.

[Denis54321]

Yes, I have tried that.

How come you stopped? Did it not help you?

[kaleida]

How come you stopped? Did it not help you?

For good morning prevention, elbow position didn't make a difference for me at all (although I read it works for some people). I do pull the bar down onto my shoulders but that's just to stay tight.

Are you looking for good morning prevention cue ideas? I've collected a lot of those Most of them didn't work for me but the whole list might still be useful...different people respond to different cues.

[Denis54321]

For good morning prevention, elbow position didn't make a difference for me at all (although I read it works for some people). I do pull the bar down onto my shoulders but that's just to stay tight.

Are you looking for good morning prevention cue ideas? I've collected a lot of those Most of them didn't work for me but the whole list might still be useful...different people respond to different cues.

Right now my squats are looking good. They are weaker than they were prior to vacation in Mexico, but after spending a month doing nothing but stiff legged pulls and overhead presses, I think my squat form is solid. Only had one squat workout so far though. Will have one this Friday before I come to my conclusion on what the cause of the gm squat is, at least for me. I believe weak posterior chain is my problem.

[cirion0000]

If you get a real scientific answer to that, from this website, I will be amazed. While they're at it I'd love a a real scientific explanation of why leg drive helps bench press

No expert by any stretch of the imagination but I've been practicing leg drive more and more... and I think I can explain (in my opinion, at least) why this works. I have found that my best cue for "leg drive" is to visualize yourself actually trying to "Jump", but without having glutes come off bench. This "jump" motion will actually "launch" the bar off the chest because when you go through the jump motion but without actually causing the body to come off the ground, the momentum forces the bar up in a manner not unlike when you use the slingshot or bands etc. Think of it almost like doing a push press for OHP, but instead, it's a "push press" for benching. Push press = leg drive for OHP. Main difference being, most people don't consider a push press a valid equivalent to OHP, so there is a distinguishment between strict standing OHP and push pressing, but there is not such a distinguishment between benching with and without leg drive (except, perhaps, to say some people call one a "powerlifting" bench press).

So basically, keep glutes glued to bench, but let your arms freely move, so that the momentum helps the arms but doesn't make glutes come off bench (this is gonna take me lots of practice, since you kinda have to find the sweet spot for enough of a "jump" motion to help your arms but without causing glutes to come off bench). I find it easier to utilize leg drive by purposefully letting the bar "sink" into my chest a little (gently, don't "drop" it into you of course) before launching off.

Okay, not very scientific. But this is the explanation that I am sticking with now

[Floider]

Fitness is a varied world with varied people, varied problems, and multiple good solutions for any problem. Rippetoe's a cool guy but openness about ideas that didn't come from his book is not one of his strong points. I had to branch out and find a different role model because of that.

He says "I'm pretty sure that front squats cannot fix a squat." - but front squats removed my squat good morning in about 2 weeks. And it was the only variable I changed at the time - after spending 9 months and a lot of frustration looking for a fix on this, I wanted to be 110% sure what finally fixed it, so I was very careful about only changing one thing at a time.

My best guess about why front squats work? In a back squat, you have multiple options to get the weight up, good morning or no good morning ... and if the "no good morning" pathway loses steam at the end of a long set, you can go to plan B and good-morning it ... but in a front squat that's just not an option. In a front squat you have to take the "no good morning" pathway otherwise your wrists will hurt - and that pathway gets stronger because it's getting more practice. I think the wrist pain feedback is important too because that makes it easier to be really strict about "no good mornings allowed" and make adjustments during the lift. I never got that instant feedback from a back squat - I'd always have to look at a video afterwards to see if I was successful avoiding the good morning - but once the set is finished there's no way to tell my body "ignore that set, don't learn from that set, what we just did was wrong" - the work is already done, the groove is already greased.

Among multiple possible problems Rippetoe is discussing one issue and your issue was something completely different:

If front squatting fixed your back squat issues in 2 weeks then what you lacked was proper technique. Two weeks of doing front squats didn't fix muscle imbalances or any other strength issue... it taught you a cue on how to raise your chest and hips in unison.

A nice video that shows the muscle actions and good morning:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb4rKCM3BKM

[kaleida]

Among multiple possible problems Rippetoe is discussing one issue and your issue was something completely different:

If front squatting fixed your back squat issues in 2 weeks then what you lacked was proper technique. Two weeks of doing front squats didn't fix muscle imbalances or any other strength issue... it taught you a cue on how to raise your chest and hips in unison.

A nice video that shows the muscle actions and good morning:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb4rKCM3BKM

The nice thing about front squats for good morning prevention is that they cover the weakness regardless of why it was - one person might just need a mental cue and an exaggerated-upright-torso sandbox to play around with different mental cues ...another person might need to strengthen one of the many different muscles that's involved in squatting without a good morning...another person might need to strengthen a completely different muscle...etc. I don't know which of those categories I fit into - probably multiple categories. I just know that front squats gave me (and a lot of other people) very good and fast results with good morning prevention. I kept training them permanently, it's an ongoing effort for me, but I saw the first sign of results after 2 weeks.

That said, some people don't need to prevent good mornings because for some people, good-morninging their squat is a stronger option and they use that option on purpose for 1RMs...that's a fine option too for some people.