I’m trialling box squats as my non-heavy deadlift. I’ll alternate every four weeks between these, sumo pulls and good mornings.
I figured I’d set the box just a bit below where my hips are at the start of my deadlift and keep my stance very close to my deadlift stance width.
They sure felt more like a deadlift than a squat. Trashed my upper back too.
Looks pretty good to me.
My only suggestion would be to strip a few pounds off the bar. You plop onto the box toward the bottom a bit. Other than that, looks good, strong lift.
There’s more than one way to box squat so you can’t really say it’s wrong, but definitely control the descent more. You could try putting a foam pad on the box to cushion your descent.
Awesome,thanks. I was trying to get a close to 5RM, working load will be around 350 lbs for 8-10.
I’ll definitely bear the descent foam pad in mind, there’s one at the gym.
You said you set it up a specific way so it looks okay based on that.
I’d prefer it a bit deeper, stance wider and you sitting back more getting the shins more vertical for a “box squat” but for the purpose you described it may work.
The only thing that’s completely off is you’re plopping on the box. Stay tight and don’t drop onto it. Sit on it. Eventually the plopping will blow a disc and just reinforces getting loose in a squat.
[quote]corstijeir wrote:
You said you set it up a specific way so it looks okay based on that.
I’d prefer it a bit deeper, stance wider and you sitting back more getting the shins more vertical for a “box squat” but for the purpose you described it may work.
The only thing that’s completely off is you’re plopping on the box. Stay tight and don’t drop onto it. Sit on it. Eventually the plopping will blow a disc and just reinforces getting loose in a squat.[/quote]
I did consider that. You reckon it’d still carry over well to my DL doing it that way? I could strip the plate off the box so the height would be about 12" and set my feet in my normal squat stance. It would certainly be easier to stay tight that way.
[quote]MarkKO wrote:
[quote]corstijeir wrote:
You said you set it up a specific way so it looks okay based on that.
I’d prefer it a bit deeper, stance wider and you sitting back more getting the shins more vertical for a “box squat” but for the purpose you described it may work.
The only thing that’s completely off is you’re plopping on the box. Stay tight and don’t drop onto it. Sit on it. Eventually the plopping will blow a disc and just reinforces getting loose in a squat.[/quote]
I did consider that. You reckon it’d still carry over well to my DL doing it that way? I could strip the plate off the box so the height would be about 12" and set my feet in my normal squat stance. It would certainly be easier to stay tight that way.
[/quote]
If your squat goes up generally your deadlift goes up. If you want to build positional deadlift strength do it with deadlift variations. IMO.
Give this setup a go ( while staying tight ) and see how it works for you. It could be your secret weapon or it could suck.
[quote]corstijeir wrote:
[quote]MarkKO wrote:
[quote]corstijeir wrote:
You said you set it up a specific way so it looks okay based on that.
I’d prefer it a bit deeper, stance wider and you sitting back more getting the shins more vertical for a “box squat” but for the purpose you described it may work.
The only thing that’s completely off is you’re plopping on the box. Stay tight and don’t drop onto it. Sit on it. Eventually the plopping will blow a disc and just reinforces getting loose in a squat.[/quote]
I did consider that. You reckon it’d still carry over well to my DL doing it that way? I could strip the plate off the box so the height would be about 12" and set my feet in my normal squat stance. It would certainly be easier to stay tight that way.
[/quote]
If your squat goes up generally your deadlift goes up. If you want to build positional deadlift strength do it with deadlift variations. IMO.
Give this setup a go ( while staying tight ) and see how it works for you. It could be your secret weapon or it could suck.
[/quote]
That’s a good call. I’m not really looking for positional strength, I’ve done that and it didn’t do too much.
I’ll keep this setup simply because it feels so deadlift-like and stay as tight as I can.
Thanks again.