How to do box squats

Box squats work your posterior chain.

When performing box squats, extend your lower body back further than you would during a regular squat. This movement pattern helps to activate muscle groups across your lower body, including your hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors, hip flexors, and lower back muscles.

Start with a box height that allows you to squat so your thigh is no more than three inches above or below parallel to the floor. (Easy tip: Choose a box as tall as your leg from ankle to knee). If your box is too short, add a few weight plates or rubber mats on top.

A box squat really targets the hamstrings and glutes and helps you build power. A box squat can be good for both beginners and advanced students. Since you have to sink back further to reach the box, these squats challenge your glutes and hamstrings even more, Wheeler says.

Box Squatting Is Not Dangerous to Athletes. Like a vise, the vertical compression of a barbell on an upper back could be a problem if the athlete collapses on the rapid descent of the lift. Any lift with heavy weight, whether single or double leg, fast or slow, with a box or without one, has risk.

Do not base the training weight on your full squat record! Box squats are much harder than full squats! Do 8-12 sets of 2 reps with 1 minute rest between sets. This type of squatting is hard work, but each rep shouldn’t be hard.

Here’s a quick list of common box squat errors: Not sitting back far enough, which reduces depth and posterior chain involvement. Leaning forward too much, which turns the movement into more of a good morning than a squat. Relaxing too much on the box.

The box squat is limited in its sport specificity, because no strength sports demand that the competitor squat down to a box and stand back up. But it can be effective for bodybuilders looking to increase posterior chain activation, or an injured athlete who needs to limit the range of motion used.

Both the box squat and the regular squat have the ability to build strength and muscle hypertrophy, each in their own way (discussed above). Box squats can be used to increase quadriceps hypertrophy, address sticking points in the squat, and even allow for posterior chain development (increased hip engagement at bottom

Consider adding the box squat to your leg training. It can help to boost your squat strength by allowing you to squat with more strength and power, which over time can carry over into more strength and power on regular squats. And that can translate into a bigger squat and bigger legs.

Build strong hamstrings and glutes.

Many people tend to be quad-dominant, meaning their quads like to take over and do more of the work in leg workouts. Box squats can help you tap into the strength of the muscles in your posterior chain—the back side of your body—including your glutes and hamstrings.

The box squat allows you to reach back more than would be otherwise allowable at a given stance, and it can be easy to achieve vertical tibiae. This piles more work onto the hamstrings and posterior chain, which is something all squatters need more of. The box squat allows more measurable progress.

To Gain Strength

You can also use more weight than with back squats (due to the limited ROM). Start by programming the box squat as you would any strength-specific movement, usually for two to five reps at 80-90% of your one-rep max for three to five sets.

As the weights go up, so does the height of the squat. With a box there, there is no cheating. Recovery. Box Squats can be a great way to give the knees a rest in an intense squatting regime and still work the legs in a similar movement pattern as a regular squat. More Weight.

If one suffers a knee injury, box squatting can be done while rehabing the injury. When sitting on a box fully and correctly, the shins are past perpendicular. This reduces the pressure on the patella tendons by placing the majority of the weight on the hamstrings and glutes and on the heels, not the toes.

If you squat 400 pounds and are training at 200 pounds, then you should be applying 400 pounds of force to the barbell. As I mentioned earlier, the weight used will be sub-maximal in the 50% to 75% repetition maximum range.

Completely sit on the box for a 1 count but DO NOT RELAX. It is important to keep every muscle tight. It is OK to have a forward translation of your knees when sitting on the box. To reverse the movement, drive upwards off the box while maintaining a neutral spine.