The box squats on Friday are to be done on a below parallel box.
Fill your abdomen with air and push out against your belt. Push your knees
out to the sides and with a tightly arched back, squat back, not down,
until you are sitting on the box.
Sit back as far as possible and push against the bar, not the box,
to come up. Remember, the form is butt back, knees out. Work hard on controlling
your descent and maintaining you form. As you descend, so shall you rise.
Never drop onto the box. Always use a pad on the box.
Pause on the box. Relax the hip flexors and then contract strongly as you
drive back into the bar to stand up.
Don't turn the feet out too far.
Use a flat soled shoe. Chuck Taylors are perfect. If you prefer
a stiff shoe, Safe will make a pair with a flat sole.
Remember, hamstrings and glutes are the key.
Generally, you will use weights between 65-82.5% of the 1RM on the box
you are using. Most of the time
this will be about 50-70% of what you squat in a meet.
During training, no knee wraps are worn. Use only a belt and shorts or
an old suit bottom with the straps down.
Keep rest periods short - 45-75 seconds.
After box squatting, there are a number of exercises that can be rotated
and/or combined to hit the low backand hamstrings:
Arched back good mornings
20 rep deadlifts
Arched back, shins straight up and down, pushing glutes rearward
- lower bar to shin level and pull back up.
Pull throughs on low pulley
Back raises
Calf ham glute raises
Note on arched back good mornings. These can be performed two ways.
For squatting the range of motion should be no more than 8-12". These allow
you to use more weight to build stability for squatting. To assist the
deadlift, the range of motion can be increase to the point where you approach
parallel to the floor. Ligther wieghts, of course, would have to be used.
Another Westside favorite is a combination, arched back good morning and
squat. You lean forward as if to do a good morning and then go into a full
squat. I haven't tried these, yet.
Finally, you can add chains to the bar - just like the bench. This will
make you work harder throughout the entire rep!
