Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat

Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat
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Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat

There are so many variations of the mighty squat - the only true leg building mechanism around in old school opinion. Unlike many of the variations of exercises for other body parts, variations for squats never take the beneficial range of motion out of the exercise. With any type of squat, you'll always, well, squat.

Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat

So box squats were invented by a guy called Louie Simmons - the only guy over the age of 50 to squat 920 pounds.

Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat
Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat

He's also the head of an elite, hardcore lifting crew called Westside Barbell in Culver City.

Lots of lifters at this hardcore emporium have squatted more than 900 pounds, in fact, and that's due to pure and simple technique and the support of a crew who want its members to achieve more and more in powerlifting.

A couple of these guys have joined the 1000 pound club.

Box squats are a simple technique invention, that includes a sturdy wooden box or platform that can be placed beneath the hips. The hips must be lower than the knees, slightly, when the person comes to rest (in the lowest squat position of the exercise).

There's no bouncing, no touch and go, just a solid SIT, and a coming back up again. Control is the earmark of this technique that builds not only muscle, but stabilizes squats and strengthens surrounding joints, ligaments and tendons to enable the lifter to move up in weight.

With sins perpendicular to the floor, and a sitting back on the box with the hips moving back first on the way down, it allows a safer, faster means of progress.

Benefits of the Box Squat are many:

You can't cheat depth, according to the fellas down there, and you learn to sit back by moving your hips first - thereby increasing hip mobility.

Another benefit is that you develop overall hip power, which of course is important for squat thrust and lower body strength. Box squats require starting from a dead stop in the bottom position, and this develops explosive posterior chain strength.

It's also a safe way to go, because it stops the lifter from buckling and rounding the lower back. It's harder, say the folks who do it, to round the back when you're moving down and back, leading with the hips.

Fans of the box squat recommend beginning with a box that is slightly higher than the knees, and you can use varying depth boxes while you learn. The main thing is, a true box squat requires your hips go slightly lower than the knees in the sit position before coming back up with the weight.

Some use an aerobic box or platform, and the Westside Barbell crew say that Elite FTS sells one online. You can also use rubber bumper plates the gym - though that may be selfish if the supply in your gym isn't great.

EXECUTION OF BOX SQUAT:

Box Squat Starting Position -

The starting position on Box Squats is similar as for Squats. But you'll use a slightly wider stance.

Make sure the bar is stationed low on your back to begin. A high bar doesn't work for Box Squats. Put the bar low, on top of your scapular spine.

Use a narrow Grip -

Narrow makes it easier to keep your upper-back tight, which adds strength.

Foot Stance -

Shouldn't be a sumo stance, but should be wider than your shoulder-width. Feet should be turned out about 30 degrees.

Tight upper-back -

Imagine squeezing a pen between your shoulder blades. Keep this position during the whole lift.

Keep chest up -

Stick chest outward and keep it up. This together with the tight upper-back will prevent your back from bending.

Look Forward -

Fix a point in front of you during the whole lift. Don't look up or down, just look forward or through the mirror.

Push Your Abs Out -

This increases lower back stability. Push abs out as if someone was going to punch you in your stomach.

HOW TO SQUAT DOWN ON BOX:

Lower yourself by moving your hips first. Your knees should hardly move during Box Squats, it all comes from your hips.

Sit Back, and lead by pushing your hips back as far as you can. Think sitting on a toilet. Your knees don't move, your hips move back - which is why keeping your chest and abs out stabilize.

Shins are perpendicular to the floor - even past perpendicular to the floor. You'll get this by moving your hips first. Push them back as far as you can.

Keep the knees out - your upper-thighs must stay in line with your feet to avoid knee injuries. Imagine pushing your knees out in the same direction as where your toes point.

Sit down on the box, but do not let yourself fall down on it.

Lower yourself under good control - not slowly, but also not a quick touch and go. It should be fluid and controlled.

Remember to stay tight - don't relax your muscles, it can cause back injuries. Keep all your muscles tight on the box.

HOW TO SQUAT OFF THE BOX:

Stay tight, keep your chest up and look forward. Squat up by thinking "hips up," do not lean forward.

Plant heels firmly on the floor, and curl your toes. Heels keep you from losing balance. Push from the outer side of your feet, and explode. You can't do Box Squats slowly. Think: Explode upward from hips. That's how Box Squats build hip power.

COMMON BOX SQUAT MISTAKES OF EXECUTION:

As with any weight lifting exercise, the lower back can become compromised if you don't execute correct form. The key is to sit on the box and stay tight, not to bounce or relax at any point.

Mistake 1: Bouncing off The Box - This sandwiches your spine between the bar and the box, causing back injuries. Lower yourself under control to sit on the box for a brief moment and begin coming up.

Mistake 2: Relaxing on The Box - When you do this, your spine gets the whole load as surrounding muscles can't provide support. Stay tight, push your abs out.

Mistake 3: Keeping Knees Forward - It kills posterior chain strength. Keep your shins at perpendicular to the floor - or past. Lower yourself by pushing your hips back.

Mistake 4: Rocking Forward - Won't allow you to use your glutes effectively and will risk back injury. Squat up by moving your hips up. Keep your torso still.

Mistake 5: Leaning Forward - Can make your back round. Instead, look forward, keeping a big chest, with shoulder blades back and down; arch your back, push your abs out. Squat.

Mistake 6: Keeping knees in - This puts uneven compression on knee joint. Push your knees out from start to finish. Keep your thighs in line with your feet.

By squatting deeper than you imagined in a cage, box squats allow you to isolate all the correct muscles. Through isolating all the correct muscles, it enables you to develop additional flexibility, and muscle development, and quickly improves your pulling strength for things like deadlifts and Olympic pulls. In a word, box squats are the versatility lifters need to move past those plateaus, and a great start for beginners to ingrain the most correct form.

Bodybuilding Workout Routine - The Box Squat
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A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women

A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women
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A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women

The benefits of lifting weights among women is plentiful. Weight lifting is a form of resistance training which helps to build bone density, and build stabilizer muscles to help prevent future sprains. It is also excellent at raising metabolism and burning body fat. It also increases well being and feelings of overall happiness.

A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women

Deciding to incorporate weight lifting into your routine is a big first step. Now is the time to get educated about proper form, technique and routines so you can build your muscles at their optimal level. Simply throwing some weights around at the gym will rarely give you the results you desire.

A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women
A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women

First familiarize yourself with the major muscle groups of the human body, including the pectorals in the chest, deltoids in the shoulder, biceps and triceps in the arms, lattimus dorsi and trapezus in the back, abdominals in the core, and quadriceps, hamstrings and calf muscles in the legs.

You will start with compound movements, which is those incorporating two or more major muscle groups. This will introduce your muscles to your new weight lifting routine, help strengthen the stabilizing muscles and will allow you to exercise more muscle groups in less amount of time.

It is best to begin with an all body routine, meaning you will exercise all the major muscle groups of the body in one routine. Choose one to two exercises per large muscle group and do 3-4 sets each with 8-12 repetitions. You will do this workout three or four times a week, resting at least one day between workouts. Here is an example of a full body routine:

Chest - Incline Bench Press
Deltoids- Military Shoulder Press, Side Lateral Raises
Biceps - Bicep Curls, Concentration Curls
Triceps - Tricep Pressdowns
Back - Seated Cable Row, Lat Pulldowns, Bent Over Rows
Legs - Squats, Lunges
Hamstrings - Hamstring Curls
Calves - Calf Raises
Abs - Crunches, Reverse Crunches

After 4-6 weeks, you will notice yourself getting progressively stronger. After the six week mark, you can do a upper body/lower body split routine, which means you work the upper body on one day, and the lower body on a different day. This allows you to work more muscles and perform isolation movements, or those exercises utilizing only one major muscle group.

Do each upper body and lower body workout twice a week. Here is an example:

Upper Body
Chest - Bench Press, Cable Flye
Deltoids- Upright Rows, Shoulder Press
Back - Bent Over Rows, Lat Pulldowns
Triceps - Skullcrushers, Tricep Pressdowns
Biceps - Concentration Curls, Preacher Curls

Lower Body
Quads - Squats, Walking Lunges, Seated Leg Extension
Hamstrings - hamstring Curls, Barbell Romanian Deadlift
Calves - Calf Raise, Donkey Calf Raise
Abs - Crunches on Stability Ball, Oblique Crunches

An upper body workout can be performed on Monday and Thursday and lower body workout on Tuesday and Friday.

After a few months of an upper/lower split routine you can further split your routine into specific muscle groups, and will have graduated onto an intermediate weight lifting routine.

A Beginner's Weight Lifting Routine For Women
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Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!

Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!
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Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!

As bodybuilders solidify their adherence to the rules of bodybuilding, something starts to happen. They begin to succeed. They grow like they've never grown. Their strength reaches new level, and their bodies reach new sizes. Consistency delivers results. And as results begin to accumulate the body is suddenly able to handle new workloads, and must, in order to continue to grow.

Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!

There are two ways a body can be challenged in order to stimulate new growth- Training heavier and training longer. Training heavier is always the goal of beginner and intermediate bodybuilders. But as one reaches advanced levels of bodybuilding, the weights become more and more dangerous, and the body's joints and tendons become more and more susceptible to injury. The alternative to heavier weights is to train longer - up to two hours per body part.

Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!
Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!

By definition, this is over training. If you have any element of your bodybuilding regimen unchecked, you will fail. Nutrition, rest, and supplementation need to be covered 100% or you are wasting your time. But if you are able to keep all factors completely in check - and increase them when warranted - you might be ready for 120 minute body part training.

For this example, we'll examine a chest routine. Suppose you normally complete 4 sets for upper chest (incline bench press), 4 sets for lower/middle chest (flat dumbbell presses) and 4 sets for chest/delt tie-in (cable crossovers). You complete your workout in about 45 to 60 minutes. You will keep this workout, but add new movements to supplement the target areas. Your new workout would look like this:

-3 Sets Flat Bench Press (Warm-Up & Overall Chest)

-4 Sets Incline Bench Press (Upper Chest)

-4 Sets Incline Dumbbell Flies (Upper Chest)

-4 Sets Flat Dumbbell Press (Middle Chest)

-4 Sets Flat Dumbbell Flies (Middle And Outer Chest)

-3 Sets Decline Bench Press (Lower And Middle Chest)

At this point, you would take your 'recharge' break. If you're done, go home. But if you have it in you to complete the 120-minute workout, eat a piece of fruit, stretch a bit, and complete the workout. Your weights will now be lighter and your rep sets higher (10 to 15 reps per set)

-3 Sets Weighted Chest Dips

-4 Sets Dumbbell Pullovers

-4 Sets Cable Crossovers

-5 To 10 Minutes Of Stretching

This workout is not for the faint of heart. You will be sore the next day. Initially, you may need a day off following this routine for the central nervous system (CNS) to recover. Each week, you should be able to add one more day like this to your training regimen until you're doing 4 to 5 days of 120-minute routines.

Have your post workout nutrition ready ahead of time (whey shake with dextrose) and consume 15 minutes after training with cold water. Hit the showers. Drive home and tackles a very protein-rich, carb-rich meal. Spaghetti and meatballs will beat out a chicken salad any day after this routine. Training for 120 minutes per body part is only recommended for advanced athletes who have all nutritional, sleep, and supplementation bases covered. See if it's right for you!

Advanced Bodybuilding Workout Routine For Monster Mass!
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Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine

Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine
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Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine

If you're a beginner and even an intermediate, hard work on major compound movements working the whole body are all you need. Split routines, negatives and the like are for more advanced trainers.

Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine

Isolation exercises should not even enter the picture until you've been at it over a period of years. Major compound exercises build mass over the entire body, which is what the beginner and intermediate lifter need to do before deciding to work all angles of the biceps. Build good size biceps first and then worry about hitting them from all different angles!

Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine
Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine

Don't forget to eat well, rest and drink plenty of water. Water is your friend people. Don't think for one second you're going to build a solid body by working out and then stuffing pizza and beer down your throat every chance you can. Don't go overboard, everyone needs to let go and have some fun but be sensible about it.

Bodybuilding HIT Program: Beginners Routine

Squats 2 x 10-15

Bench Press or Dips 2 x 6-12

Chins or Reverse Grip Pulldowns 2 x 6-12

Overhead Press 2 x 6-12

Notes: Work out two days a week and work to momentary muscular failure. Once you go past reps with good form add more weight. Throw in some ab work if you want, but stay away from isolation exercises. Patience is key. Unless you're a genetic freak or on drugs, gains come slow, but steady. If your new to this, stay on this beginners program for six months to a year and then move on to an intermediate program.

Understand that to be successful in any weight training program - hard work is a must! Half-hearted effort does nothing for you. If you're new to weight training or grossly out of shape, consult a physician first. End of disclaimer.

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