Training the Squat

For years I have been a dedicated advocate of box squatting. My own personal experience with the box squat really cemented my philosophy and it has worked well with all of my athletes. I have refined my view on the box squat, however. We used to only parallel box squat much like what Westside Barbell does or used to do. We used a wide stance and a box that put us right at or slightly above parallel. Over the last two years we moved to a low box and took a more moderate stance. The results have been phenomenal. Our standard box is 12 inches high and we require our athletes to sit and pause while remaining tight and then explode up as fast as possible. Only a few of our athletes need a different height box. 12 inches seems to work for most. What we ended up getting was all of our athletes squatting way below parallel on a regular basis. We also continue to break up the eccentric/concentric chain thus allowing us to increase starting strength. Some key points...
1. Always "land soft" on the box. I shouldn't see any fat jiggle when you sit.
2. Don't rock back when you are on the box. Just sit, pause, and get up.
3. Even though we are using a moderate stance, we still start the squat by breaking the hips and not the knees.
4. Have good spots at all times. Dumping a box squat will ruin your bar. We always say that nobody should miss and if you do, the bar should never touch anything. Spotting is key!
5. You must pause completely on the box in order to get the benefits. I can't emphasize this enough. I said pause not relax!

Another advantage of the low box squat is that you can use about 15% lower weights than you would for a free squat. Our experience is that a 1RM low box squat is about 10-16% lower than a 1RM free squat. The discrepency is caused by the length of pause and depth of squat. The 12inch box is much lower for some than others so it represents a much tougher exercise. The advantages are still the same.

To emphasize this point, let me show you how one of our athletes progressed on the squat this year. He squatted 505 this summer so the most weight he used in our program was 430. That represents 85% of his 1RM on the free squat. When we tested, he squatted 565. We have others that have similar results. The guys who get the worst results are the guys who try and cheat the pause. If you cheat the pause, you won't be happy come max time!

One word of warning...I do not believe that you should rely solely on the box squat as your major means for squatting. I have done this in the past and I feel like it led to a reduction in reactive strength. In addition to our box squat, we do full front squats, overhead squats, full cleans, one leg squats, and lunges all during our cycles.