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Box Squats...

Merkaba

Merkaba

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How do you feel about them? I know powerlifters seem to swear by them. I've just never been a fan. Most people I see do them and rest. I don't think you're supposed to rest any part of the body, especially the back/lumbar, correct? Or perhaps the legs should rest and this is the goal?

I see many people rolling the spine and leaning back. I don't get it. It seems that a deep, slow,controlled squat with a pause at the bottom will be just as good. Granted the lower chain, etc having to fire with no momentum is great. For basic and even advanced training I don't see the reasoning. I would put them in a "specialized" category.

convince me.
 
Merkaba said:
How do you feel about them? I know powerlifters seem to swear by them. I've just never been a fan. Most people I see do them and rest. I don't think you're supposed to rest any part of the body, especially the back/lumbar, correct? Or perhaps the legs should rest and this is the goal?

I see many people rolling the spine and leaning back. I don't get it. It seems that a deep, slow,controlled squat with a pause at the bottom will be just as good. Granted the lower chain, etc having to fire with no momentum is great. For basic and even advanced training I don't see the reasoning. I would put them in a "specialized" category.

convince me.
Click to expand...

An inquiring mind is a good thing. I don't think I'm going to convince you of anything, nor do I wish to (I personally don't utilize box squats "very often."), but I can satisfy some of your inquiries for the sake of answering a good question.

On a more superficial level, the general perception is that box squats are meant for specific sticking point training, which it can be, though it'd only deal with the upper half of the ROM. Theoretically, you would use more weight then you are able to go HtC and take advantage of the shortened ROM to acclimate to more weight and to train specific weak points of the ROM.

On a deeper look at box squats, what you're primarily training are motor units. Before the muscle fibers contract, the neurotrasmitter acetylcholine will activate your motor units. Motor units innnervate an "X" amount of muscle fibers. A motor unit could innervate 10 muscle fibers are 1,000 muscle fibers. Once your motor units are activated, the muscle fibers that specific motor unit innervates will shorten (contract).

A few neural adaptions occur with a complete stop, into a full contraction movement (ie.. box squats).

#1. You can train your motor units or better put, cause an adaptation, where your motor units innervate a greater number of muscle fibers. Imagine a hand that controls 5 fingers to suddenly close and make a fist (ie. contract), to a hand with 15, 20, 100 fingers at its command to close and make a fist.

So know imagine your quad and along your quads are muscle fibers and spread out across these muscle fibers sits a motor unit, thousounds of motor units, each with their own authority to command the contraction of a given amount of muscle fibers.

Here's where the real strength comes in.

#2. You can train your motor units to perform "Coordinated Motor Unit Firing," which is exactly how it sounds. When your muscle contract, say in a squat, not all of your muscles contract at the exact same time. Motor units are activated in as needed basis (which is also a principle as to why we really warm up; its not just for blood flow, but to recruit motor units), so here's an analogy to normal bodybuilding muscle contraction. Imagine a giant city and its completley blacked out. Now imagine if lights started to come on across the city, relatively at the same time, but realistically, it 'd look more like one light here, two lights there, five, six lights there until all the lights are on. Metaphorically, that's how our muscle normally contract. One motor unit activates, then two, then five, then fifty..... all within seconds of course. This is why the weight feels lighter as we warm up, because we have activated many motor units at this point, but they don't all remain activated until required.

Now, with a highly adapted Coordinated Motor Unit Firing environment, imagine that same blackened city and, now upon time of contraction, all the lights turn on at the exact same time. When all the motor units activate at the exact same time, instead of in progressive spurts, you can the ability to drive with much, much greater power.

Here's the whole picture, complete stop and go training causes your motor units to innervate a greater amount of muscle fibers and along with that, causes your motor units to firing synchronously, which makes your contraction much more powerful.

In the long run, the increased strength benefits will augment the hypertrophic benefits.

Please feel free to ask me for clarifications if need be and I apologize for any spelling and gramamtical errors, its a big post and I didn't proof read.
 
I'm not an expert but I'll throw in my .02 cents. As stated in my signature quote. A child does not learn to squat from the top down. Watching my son grow I have witnessed exactly that. It is funny to watch him squat down and pick things up. The way he bends is like a lifter with perfect form. His butt is almost touching the ground, heals down and he does it effortlessly. I think the squat should be ass to ground because the body moves that way. What I understand is that people, over time, become lazy and don't move the way they did when they were younger. This is mostly due to finding way to get things easier and gaining so much weight that they can't bend certain ways. With all that being said, I don't like box squats because they are unnatural.
 
Doublebase said:
I'm not an expert but I'll throw in my .02 cents. As stated in my signature quote. A child does not learn to squat from the top down. Watching my son grow I have witnessed exactly that. It is funny to watch him squat down and pick things up. The way he bends is like a lifter with perfect form. His butt is almost touching the ground, heals down and he does it effortlessly. I think the squat should be ass to ground because the body moves that way. What I understand is that people, over time, become lazy and don't move the way they did when they were younger. This is mostly due to finding way to get things easier and gaining so much weight that they can't bend certain ways. With all that being said, I don't like box squats because they are unnatural.
Click to expand...

I've mentioned this too but most kids round their lower back. What do you think about that? Not really an issue when youre flexible as hell with no weight on your back...but technically not what most would advise...?
 
Just because you're sitting down doesn't mean your back should be any less tight during the box squat. Upper back and lower back are included in that statement.

When i box squat, even during the sit portion, my lower back and upper back are exactly the same as during the rest of the squat. Its just the box taking the weight rather than my legs.

The point of the box squat is to improve your squatting depth (the box should always be a few inches lower than your regular squatting depth, which should be parallel anyways), as well as training you to be able to produce power out of the hole from a dead start.

If you can squat 200lbs from a dead start below your regular depth, when you factor in elastic recoil and reduce the ROM back to normal you will be able to get that 200lbs rep a lot easier (and probably do some more reps with it too).

Thats the logic behind it anyways. Basic points:

1. Just because you're not stabilizing the weight during the sit, that isn't an excuse to let your posture or form go to shit.

2. If the box isn't lower than parallel (or at least lower than your usual depth) you're wasting your time.

Personally i quite enjoy box squats.
 
There's a valid training purpose for box squats but you have to program and perform them correctly.

Yes, pause squats at the bottom will help you gain strength in the hole, but they don't allow you to sit really far back to engage your hips and hamstrings like box squats will.

Think about it - rock bottom pause squats lend themselves to a compact body position which inevitably means more knee flexion and less hip flexion. Box squats allow for a ridiculous amount of hip flexion.

That said, unless you're a geared powerlifter, why would you perform them? Part of the reason they work for geared powerlifters is that squat suits give similar support to the lifter in the hole. That's why you don't see raw powerlifters squat like guys in double-ply gear.
 
I use to box squat alot when i was using the bigger,faster, stronger program in high school. I enjoyed it but once i started gaining strength the box squat would KILL my back. Im no expect but im pretty sure its from my spine being compressed
 
As a powerlifter we utilize the box squat in a number of ways. One we use a high box squat to utilize the strength at the top of the lift(the lock out if you will) and then we utilize the low box squat to utilize the "out of the hole" work. Mostly we use the lower box to break parallel. In competition we have to break this to be a good lift. It also takes away your momentum, its almost like a board press for your bench. A good box squat is you squat, touch the box and go right back up. You should not bounce, you should just touch, stop your momentum and then press the weight. Its assential for powerlifting, but not too many body builders use them in our gym, more so the strict, slow only to parallel squat.
 
I think it's true if your not a geared powerlifter box squatting may not be necessary. I am no powerlifter, but a hockey player and they have helped my squat poundages tremendously. There not nearly as taxing as normal squats which is a bonus with all the conditioning I have to do. Box squatting twice a week is much easier for me than back squatting twice a week.

Even if you have very good form, It will not hurt you only help you, only of course if you do it right. I agree that high box squats using the bench is not beneficial, at least not for my goals. Powerlifter's training for lockout is a different story, I just learned. Last spring I did box squats for the first time, honestly every pound increase on the box translated directly to my back squats when I got back into those last summer.

I see what Merkaba is saying though, crashing down on the box and not pushing your hips back completely defeats the purpose of squatting on a box and looks so dangerous shit makes me real nervous seeing that.

I can't vouch for this, but if size/massive quads are your goal I don't think box squatting is your best bet. JMO
 
Last edited:
Like gaz said, I use box squats on saturday when I do volume squats. I do this to build up endurance and to increase my depth. When I first started I wasn't quite parallel on my heavy squats but now I'm a little below. Pretty good progress for five saturdays.
 
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VolcomX311 said:
An inquiring mind is a good thing. I don't think I'm going to convince you of anything, nor do I wish to (I personally don't utilize box squats "very often."), but I can satisfy some of your inquiries for the sake of answering a good question.

On a more superficial level, the general perception is that box squats are meant for specific sticking point training, which it can be, though it'd only deal with the upper half of the ROM. Theoretically, you would use more weight then you are able to go HtC and take advantage of the shortened ROM to acclimate to more weight and to train specific weak points of the ROM.

On a deeper look at box squats, what you're primarily training are motor units. Before the muscle fibers contract, the neurotrasmitter acetylcholine will activate your motor units. Motor units innnervate an "X" amount of muscle fibers. A motor unit could innervate 10 muscle fibers are 1,000 muscle fibers. Once your motor units are activated, the muscle fibers that specific motor unit innervates will shorten (contract).

A few neural adaptions occur with a complete stop, into a full contraction movement (ie.. box squats).

#1. You can train your motor units or better put, cause an adaptation, where your motor units innervate a greater number of muscle fibers. Imagine a hand that controls 5 fingers to suddenly close and make a fist (ie. contract), to a hand with 15, 20, 100 fingers at its command to close and make a fist.

So know imagine your quad and along your quads are muscle fibers and spread out across these muscle fibers sits a motor unit, thousounds of motor units, each with their own authority to command the contraction of a given amount of muscle fibers.

Here's where the real strength comes in.

#2. You can train your motor units to perform "Coordinated Motor Unit Firing," which is exactly how it sounds. When your muscle contract, say in a squat, not all of your muscles contract at the exact same time. Motor units are activated in as needed basis (which is also a principle as to why we really warm up; its not just for blood flow, but to recruit motor units), so here's an analogy to normal bodybuilding muscle contraction. Imagine a giant city and its completley blacked out. Now imagine if lights started to come on across the city, relatively at the same time, but realistically, it 'd look more like one light here, two lights there, five, six lights there until all the lights are on. Metaphorically, that's how our muscle normally contract. One motor unit activates, then two, then five, then fifty..... all within seconds of course. This is why the weight feels lighter as we warm up, because we have activated many motor units at this point, but they don't all remain activated until required.

Now, with a highly adapted Coordinated Motor Unit Firing environment, imagine that same blackened city and, now upon time of contraction, all the lights turn on at the exact same time. When all the motor units activate at the exact same time, instead of in progressive spurts, you can the ability to drive with much, much greater power.

Here's the whole picture, complete stop and go training causes your motor units to innervate a greater amount of muscle fibers and along with that, causes your motor units to firing synchronously, which makes your contraction much more powerful.

In the long run, the increased strength benefits will augment the hypertrophic benefits.

Please feel free to ask me for clarifications if need be and I apologize for any spelling and gramamtical errors, its a big post and I didn't proof read.
Click to expand...

Dam I really appreciate time you put into that post. I had to read it about 3 times. Initially you had lost me at "inquiring"
 
Thanks for the responses. Most of what I've read I already was pretty much privy to, from some kind of angle or another. So basically am I ok telling people. "um you probably don't need to worry about that shit" ......?

I haven't seen one person doing them "properly" Not one.... in the gyms I go to. I think this is because people don't know what it is they're trying to accomplish.
 
Merkaba said:
I think this is because people don't know what it is they're trying to accomplish.
Click to expand...

This annoys me, because it happens way too often. Most people have absolutely no idea why they are doing some exercises when you question them. Some don't even know what muscles are being utilized.

One guy was doing what looked like a dumbell bench press, but standing up. When asked, he said all the benches were busy so he was doing them like this to "change it up".

I'm still not sure whether he was a real life troll.
 
Gazhole said:
Just because you're sitting down doesn't mean your back should be any less tight during the box squat. Upper back and lower back are included in that statement.

When i box squat, even during the sit portion, my lower back and upper back are exactly the same as during the rest of the squat. Its just the box taking the weight rather than my legs.

The point of the box squat is to improve your squatting depth (the box should always be a few inches lower than your regular squatting depth, which should be parallel anyways), as well as training you to be able to produce power out of the hole from a dead start.

If you can squat 200lbs from a dead start below your regular depth, when you factor in elastic recoil and reduce the ROM back to normal you will be able to get that 200lbs rep a lot easier (and probably do some more reps with it too).

Thats the logic behind it anyways. Basic points:

1. Just because you're not stabilizing the weight during the sit, that isn't an excuse to let your posture or form go to shit.

2. If the box isn't lower than parallel (or at least lower than your usual depth) you're wasting your time.

Personally i quite enjoy box squats.
Click to expand...


+1

Here are my thoughts right, wrong, or indifferent; The box squat increases the demand on your posterior chain, incorporating more demand on your hams, glutes, lower back, & hips. Because you pause on the box, & you have to unflex, then flex again to get out of the hole, this to me builds the big power.

Flat
 
Is that guy really hitting depth? Looks like his hip crease is 2-3 inches above his knee and that's after lifting his feet off the floor.
 
gtbmed said:
Is that guy really hitting depth? Looks like his hip crease is 2-3 inches above his knee and that's after lifting his feet off the floor.
Click to expand...

Yah, that's def not parallel let alone breaking it. What's the point of that? It's also weird how he takes his feat off the ground when he touches the box, it looks like he is using momentum.
 
I use boxes in training but mainly as a depth guide, rearely use one that is over parallel, I use to sit back and rock and felt very little carry over to anything, I go down and tap(not ram) the box and focus on exploding up, not saying this is right, just what works best for me, about 3-4 weeks out from a comp I get rid of the box and focus on getting down in the hole and rebounding out.

ST
 
I love them as I use them all the time because I work out by myself and feel much safer doing them then traditional squats to the point where I would be as fatigued. I am extreamly carefull to keep my form good strait and tight is right. There is a natural habit to roll the back when you sit down and working on my form has actually helped me with my everyday posture as well because I notice it more.
 
gtbmed said:
Is that guy really hitting depth? Looks like his hip crease is 2-3 inches above his knee and that's after lifting his feet off the floor.
Click to expand...
With that kind of weight, he's not a flyweight for sure. He's probably working on depth. That would be my guess, anyway.

cshea2 said:
Yah, that's def not parallel let alone breaking it. What's the point of that? It's also weird how he takes his feat off the ground when he touches the box, it looks like he is using momentum.
Click to expand...
I don't think he's getting an ass-ton of momentum from his feeties in comparison to the load. My guess is that he's doing that to ensure he fully relaxes, and then suddenly contracts to engage more motor units at once - nod to Volcom there for the most excellent post.

I do something similar with stepups (which I haven't done in ages and am now just suddenly wondering why) I kind of do a bit of a "stomp" as I'm stepping up, a deliberate sudden step - rather than easing my weight onto the loaded foot.
 
If he's working on depth, he's definitely not doing it correctly, unless he's training to squat in some federation that allows the hip crease to be 2-3 inches above the knee.

Come to think of it, he'd be great in the WPC...
 
No no, you misunderstood what I was trying to say. He may be having trouble getting that heavy of a load down low enough. So he starts with a box that's just lower than his lift. He'll progress down to a lower box over time. That's my take on it, anyway.
 
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