Good mornings are one of the best exercises ever, at least I felt they were for me. Standing to different heights, even seated straddling a bench.
Agreed, I think they are the best squat assistance exercise. The bar position and body position is essentially the same so you’ll have higher carryover than say, RDLs or lunges. I had best results with lower weight and very strict form, knees straight, back tight .. insane hamstring stretch & soreness. Doing them with one foot on a plate so as to load the other leg was my favorite variant, great way to increase the load on the glute/hams without increasing the weight.
Dumbest exercise is barbell hip thrusts. I don't know how this fad became such a big thing.
My regular gym underwent a refurb and both a hip thrust bench and machine. And possibly still take up benches, bars and racks doing this POS exercise.
Also agreed. I think they are popular because it’s easy to load up a lot of weight and lift due to the insanely favorable leverages. Even a relative beginner can lift a few plates on each side and look like a serious lifter to the uninformed.
I can’t be too mad though, as a fan of big butts on women I salute their efforts even if the programming is suboptimal.