USAWA

By Dan Wagman, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.

THE GUESSING GAME – BOX SQUATS

Part IV: Train Smart

The purpose for writing this series of articles was to illustrate why what appears to be very sensible training advice, doesn’t actually deliver. As with all things in life, you should also view training advice critically. The first question to ask about any training recommendation is by what physiological mechanism it’s supposed to work. The box squat’s proposed mechanism seems sensible—on the surface. With but a modicum of understanding about a muscle’s contraction mechanisms, you’d have to raise your eyebrows just enough to want to dig deeper before spending valuable time and effort on an exercise with dubious claims. Those raised eyebrows would then have your finger scrolling through research on your smartphone and you’d quickly learn that based on knowledge dating back to the 1930’s, it’s unlikely that the box squat will increase your squat ability. To summarize, research specific to that movement reveals the following:

• The way in which your muscles work to perform a squat are enhanced the least by the box squat;
• Muscle activity in the regular squat is far greater than in the box squat;
• The forces generated in the box squat are weaker than those generated in the standard squat;
• Speed of movement in the box squat is inferior to that of the squat;
• Joint moments of the lower back, hips, and knees are significantly greater in the squat than the box squat;
• The joint angles of the hip, knee, and ankle are significantly different between the two exercises and finally;
• The above indicates that the box squat lacks the required specificity to be able to enhance your abilities to squat more weight.

Warmups and a Work Set

Please note that there’s no specific reason for why I chose to investigate the box squat. I could’ve chosen from any number of training recommendations to illustrate why their proposed benefits are fictional. I simply wanted to create a perspective and illustrate an approach that you can use to evaluate whatever training advice you run across. At the end of the day, recognize that you’re a strength athlete who spends tons of time in the gym in an effort to become the strongest person you can be. That’s not easy. You’re also an all-round weightlifter who’s challenged with learning, perfecting, and becoming as strong as possible in different lifts for each meet you enter. That’s not easy. Considering how you’ve self-selected into an area of physical accomplishment that challenges you every time you step into the gym, I would argue that you trying to determine just the minimum—what’s fact and what’s wishful thinking regarding training—is much easier and will take you no longer than what it’ll take to go through your warmups and then your first work set.

There’s no way Paul Anderson could’ve had a quick look at the American Journal of Physiology to see what he could do to increase his already fantastic squat even more. In fact, most athletes back then probably didn’t even know there was research being conducted on human muscle in an effort to understand not only how it works, but how you can get it to become stronger. But today, you literally hold that information in the palm of your hand. The most difficult part for you is to sift through the nonsense and uncover information that’s based on measurable and evidence-based facts instead. To be honest, you have to take responsibility for what training advice you follow. If you find yourself getting injured and not able to make long-term gains anymore, even though you’re healthy, don’t simply write it off as being older than what you used to be, or some other equally silly and unfounded notion. Take responsibility for your training decisions, review them based on exercise science the best you can, and allow yourself to once again experience the thrill of breaking PR’s. Isn’t attaining maximal strength in your red matter worth some effort in your grey matter?

And so, what about the main problem at the core of all of this—increasing your squat overall and more specifically blasting out of the hole? You guessed it, that has been researched and you could experience huge gains if you applied that information. No need for you to stumble through the dark with silly advice put forth by any number of self-proclaimed training gurus. Put that grey matter to work and enjoy the process of learning, putting it to work in the gym, and breaking PR’s.