Starting Strength

hamstrings over time. They are excellent stretches and are often used with light weights as warm-ups for the deadlift and the squat.
    Deadlifting from blocks
     
    Another variation on the deadlift is to do the exercise while standing on blocks. By adding their height to the range of motion, the blocks increase the amount of work done (you can get the same effect by using plates with a smaller than 17-inch diameter). The blocks also add more knee extension – and therefore more quadriceps – to the exercise. Because the bar is farther away from lockout, the lifter needs more knee and hip flexion to assume the start position at the bottom, and the more acute angles require more hamstring extensibility for the lifter to assume the start position with an extended lumbar spine. These requirements make it more difficult for inflexible people to get in a correct start position, so not everybody can do this exercise. Be aware that for obvious reasons, a deadlift on blocks is an even more stressful movement than the full deadlift, so treat it with respect. No sets across with max weights, because deadlifts on blocks are an assistance exercise; use them at sub-max loads to accumulate work and to make the deadlift easier off the floor.
    Goodmornings
     
    The goodmorning is sometimes thought of as a squat variation since the bar is taken out of the rack, as in a squat, and carried on the traps. But since the goodmorning functions as a back and hamstring exercise, with no more knee extension than an RDL, and with lots of elements of pulling mechanics in the movement of the bar, a case can be made for considering it a deadlift variation. Goodmornings get their name from the rather tenuous similarity between their appearance and that of a subordinate individual greeting his superiors in the a.m. They are an old weight room exercise, largely unused today, but they are worthy of consideration as a way to strengthen your pull.
    In a goodmorning, the bar sits on top of the traps, as it does in a high-bar squat. Basically, you perform a goodmorning by bending over with the bar on your neck until your torso gets to parallel with the ground or lower and then returning to an upright position. The movement is similar to that of the Romanian deadlift in that the whole thing is essentially a hip extension that begins with an eccentric contraction – think of it as an RDL with the bar on your neck.
    In the RDL, as with a pull, the bar stays over the middle of the foot, with a vertical bar path; in the goodmorning, the bar makes an arc as it is lowered. The arc occurs because the distance from the bar to the hips along the back is usually longer than the distance from the hips to the unlocked knees, and when the bar is lowered, it travels forward ( Figure 7-29 ). This arc produces the intentional departure of the bar from a position of balance above the mid-foot, thus creating a moment arm between the bar and the balance point and using that as an aspect of the resistance in the exercise, as a heavy barbell curl does. As the weight gets heavier – and as the resulting center of mass of the lifter/barbell system gets closer to the bar – the bar path moves closer to the mid-foot.
    There are two ways to do goodmornings: flat-backed and round-backed. The flat-backed goodmorning places the hips a little farther back at the bottom of the movement than they are at the bottom of the RDL (since the bar is on top of the traps instead of hanging below the scapulas), even though the bar is in front of the toes. The round-backed version allows both the bar and the hips to stay closer to the mid-foot balance point. The difference is in the effective length of the back – the flexed spine is effectively “shorter” than the spine in rigid extension – and thus the two movements differ in the length of the moment arm they create between bar and hips.
     

    Figure 7-29. Two versions of the goodmorning.

    Flat-backed goodmornings are the most like the RDL. The knees are unlocked, the chest is up, the low back is arched, and the bar is on the traps, with the hands pulling it down into the neck to keep it from rolling or sliding up at the bottom. (It is important to stabilize the bar against your neck and keep it from sliding, especially when you’re using a bar with a center knurl; it will most assuredly dig a ditch in your neck if it moves.) The movement basically consists of sliding your hips back to lower the bar down as far as hamstring flexibility