Greg doucette's bad take on good mornings!

"10 exercises that you should never do again. They're overrated, they're dangerous, they're stupid, they don't build muscle. They're kind of useless. Just forget about them."

-Greg Doucette

I understand that Greg has a very large audience and he is tailoring his content these days to the masses, but in spite of that I think videos like Greg's here are kind of unnecessary in general, and there were a few very iffy inclusions here as well where people would be potentially shortchanging their results and their progress in the long run if they're a newbie right now and they take Greg's advice here and never do any of these exercises and simply never think about it again.

And I want to touch on those exercises in more detail in just a moment because I don't agree with Greg's assertions there, but before I get to that part, I want to point something else out. As an overarching theme here, rather than Greg frame his argument in this video as, essentially, "these exercises are dangerous and you're going to get hurt if you do them,"- rather than blanketly demonizing or "canceling" entire exercises - I would prefer something more along the lines of:

"from the perspective of building strength and building muscle these exercises are suboptimal in terms of their risk to reward ratio, especially for newer lifters. So here are some alternatives that I think get the job done in a more optimal fashion for the greater majority of people."

Here you're taking the argument, which is essentially an argument of "negative reinforcement"  (do this and something BAD will happen), and instead you're flipping that on its head and using an argument of positive reinforcement (use these BETTER alternatives and something BETTER will happen instead). That's just a better way of framing it that will appeal to people in a positive way rather than a negative one, and encourage them into making "good" decisions rather than trying to scare them away from making, what you've deemed to be "bad" ones. It simply allows people to keep their options open down the line while also keeping a more open mind overall, two things which are never bad.

I just wrapped up a review of the KneesOverToesGuy last week. Think about what he's advocating. If he had come out onto the scene even just as recently as 5 years ago he would have gotten EVISCERATED by the industry. Athlean-X and everyone else of his ilk would jumped onto the highest horse they could find and fucking ripped him a new one.

But that didn't happen because the tides have shifted. Even if certain individuals are still stuck in their old ways, the industry as a whole is more amenable to the fact that the human body is actually a durable, resilient, and malleable piece of machinery. We actually have a lot of agency in dictating what positions or movements will potentially hurt us vs. make us stronger and more resilient IF we go about implementing them properly and progressing into them properly. 

We hurt ourselves by doing too much too much soon or by not managing cumulative fatigue properly, not because any position is INHERENTLY dangerous to occupy. And in an ironic, almost hair of the dog sort of sentiment, what ails you can also potentially be what will cure you. You just need to adjust to the correct dosage: find the right volume and the right intensity level that the body can adapt to, that can stimulate adaptation without causing excessive break down, and then build up slowly from there as the tissues and the system acclimates and grows. That is how somebody like KneesOverToesGuy can burst out onto the scene and have people be receptive to his message rather than just shut it down immediately without even hearing him out.

And I could feel the difference that the different training had my body. My legs are bigger and stronger now than they were before, BUT my hips were much more mobile and supple while training through the full range of motion. My overall mobility was better and I had the strength and stability in those end range positions to back it up. In terms of sports like football or combat sports or really anything where you can potentially end up in an unpredictable or extreme position, having trained yourself to be able to handle that position adequately and to be strong and stable throughout it is probably a good idea.

Does this mean that these exercises are for everybody? No, of course not. But just because most people can't do them right does not mean that we can call them "useless" or that we should throw them out altogether as Greg has suggested - that'd be like suggesting the jump shot in basketball is worthless because most casual players have a shitty jump shot. But that is not sound logic. There are obvious benefits to be had here for certain populations, but because the positions involved are a little bit more extreme it becomes that much more important to ensure proper movement execution, proper loading, and proper training volume when performing these exercises, which are aspects that most casual trainees ignore. But that is not the fault of the exercise! That's the fault of the trainee. So let's try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, ok?

But that's not a bad thing! If your goal is to get a stronger back or a bigger squat and you know how to hinge properly at the hips while maintaining a neutral spine then you would be silly not to include this exercise in your program at least some of the time. If it's conducive to your goals then it's conducive to your goals! The movement pattern itself is no more dangerous than any other hinge movement and it has earned it's place in the strength and performance training world because it is highly effective at accomplishing these aforementioned things when it's programmed and performed correctly. Changing the orientation of the load doesn't inherently make the movement pattern any more or less dangerous than it was before, it simply the shifts the muscular emphasis that the exercise has.

But when you claim that the exercise is dangerous because it has the potential to stress the spine when done incorrectly you are straw manning the actual exercise because what YOU are referring to is NOT the actual exercise anymore. Loading up too much weight and using your sternum as a catapult during the bench press is also dangerous, and plenty of people do that! But that's not actually bench pressing, and you wouldn't suggest throwing out the bench press altogether because of it. So why suggest throwing out the good morning? Someone performing an exercise wrong does not dictate the efficacy of the actual exercise. The good morning is a useful tool for strengthening the back and hypertrophying the hamstrings. There's no reason to throw out your hammer just because you happen to be out of nails.

In real life though, these muscle groups work together. Your hip flexors have a functional purpose. They're not just there for fun and they should be trained like any other muscle group, and the sit-up is one way of at least getting some engagement going on there that most people would otherwise never get. But the point is that this exercise has its value, it's certainly not "useless,"  and it has its place in the training program. Discarding it altogether because it has historically been performed under stupid conditions is simply an overreaction to the problem.

That pretty much wraps up what I wanted to cover today. As I mentioned before, this is not an "attack" on Greg so no one needs to get offended about it. It is simply an alternative perspective. Greg and I have different training histories and that has afforded us different vantage points on many things when it comes to weight training and general fitness, and that's a good thing! And we're all still learning! And the more information we can put out there, and the more different perspectives that you guys have available to pull from, the better! So hopefully if you're a Coach Greg fan you were able to take something helpful away from this article that you'll be able to use in your own training in the future, or at the very least hopefully you'll analyze each exercise that he discussed in his video a little bit deeper in regards to your own training goals before you decide to discard them all for the long term just because Greg said you should.