T Nation

Box Squat Technique?

Beginners
#1

So today being Friday, my main lift is a box squat in which I work up to my training 3 rep max.

Ive read all the articles by Tate on the box squat and Ive looked at his videos aswell but I have a question that no one seems to mention.

Im sure the only reason it doesn’t come up is because its common sense but I want to be safe rather than sorry.

When you reach the box at the hole of your squat do you actually sit onto the box?

What I mean is do you come down onto the box and take all the weight off your legs like yoiu do when your normally sit down and then raise yourself back up.

Or(And this is what Ive been doing) do you drop your hips until your butt touches the box and then come back up, never taking the load off your legs?

Any advice on this one would be great guys as I cant find anything on it.

Dave

#2

I like Cresseys cue of sitting back on broken glass, you can either use the box as a reference or come to a full stop on the box causing the need to push up out of the bottom position without any bounce or by using stretch tension to get back up.

#3

[quote]Oregand wrote:
do you come down onto the box and take all the weight off your legs like yoiu do when your normally sit down and then raise yourself back up.

Or(And this is what Ive been doing) do you drop your hips until your butt touches the box and then come back up, never taking the load off your legs?[/quote]
Any exercise’s technique will depend on what you want to get out of the lift, but most of the time, you’d sit down to the box fully, but not releasing the tension throughout your lower body, before powering back upright.

If you squat down onto the box and then “take all the weight off your legs”, you’d be transferring the load off the muscles and directly onto the spine which is a hyoooge invitation to injury.

You can either use a very brief pause before ascending, like if you just wanted to be sure of your squat depth on each rep, or you can use a longer pause on the box while maintaining that full body tension, to eliminate the stretch reflex and build explosive strength.

Thib’s talked about this method in his Box Squat for Bodybuilders article:

[quote]Remu_87 wrote:
I like Cresseys cue of sitting back on broken glass[/quote]
I think it was actually Big Tony G who wrote about it in this article:


It also has some videos of what he’s talking about.

#4

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:

[quote]Oregand wrote:
do you come down onto the box and take all the weight off your legs like yoiu do when your normally sit down and then raise yourself back up.

Or(And this is what Ive been doing) do you drop your hips until your butt touches the box and then come back up, never taking the load off your legs?[/quote]
Any exercise’s technique will depend on what you want to get out of the lift, but most of the time, you’d sit down to the box fully, but not releasing the tension throughout your lower body, before powering back upright.

If you squat down onto the box and then “take all the weight off your legs”, you’d be transferring the load off the muscles and directly onto the spine which is a hyoooge invitation to injury.

You can either use a very brief pause before ascending, like if you just wanted to be sure of your squat depth on each rep, or you can use a longer pause on the box while maintaining that full body tension, to eliminate the stretch reflex and build explosive strength
Thib’s talked about this method in his Box Squat for Bodybuilders article:

[quote]Remu_87 wrote:
I like Cresseys cue of sitting back on broken glass[/quote]
I think it was actually Big Tony G who wrote about it in this article:


It also has some videos of what he’s talking about.[/quote]

Thanks so much for the information dude, i really appreciate you taking the time to explain that to me.

Dave