is good morning safe(good morning vs stiff legged deadlift)

like any exercise, there is a correct and an incorrect way of doing them. good morning tends to be one of the exercises where people tend to be incorrect. the main reason most of the time is either lack of flexibility in the hamstring or lack of strength in the lower back(or both).

the closest comparison for this exercise is stiff-legged deadlift(straight leg deadlift) which has few differences from the good morning but is mostly similar if you ignore the arms and shoulder blades.

no matter which workout you choose, make sure your back and neck are flat and aligned with each other. so make sure you bend(or hinge) from the hip and avoid flexing the spine(the spine must remain unchanged during the exercise).

do not forget to use your hip as well. like a deadlift, try to push your hip forward when you are coming up but do not go past zero degrees(which means your hip must not pass your knee or chest).

overall, good morning and stiff-legged deadlift are a little bit risky if you try to overload and go through failure but they are great exercises for a warm-up or low-intensity days of training because they are new stimuli to your muscles.

you can also do them at the end of your session to stretch your hamstring and glutes. in the end, I think stiff-legged deadlift is a better alternative to good morning since you have the weight under control and it seems to be less risky than good morning.