 Question is from Philly fan 1728. I see the west side barbell guys doing heavy box squats Is there a benefit to this compared to traditional squats? If so, what and why would you incorporate it into a program? I love box squats box squats Box squats were one of the one of the ways I got my squat up to the only time the first time I ever did and the only times I did it did over 400 pound squat It was the box squat that took me to the next level now what I would I take from the box squat So to do a proper box squat by the way is get under bar like you're gonna do squat You take a low box actually you can use different different heights But I would pick a box that would have me at the bottom of my normal score and range my end range And I would slowly lower myself down. I'd sit I'd stay tight I wouldn't bounce off the squat seen people do this on the box Use it as a it's like a tap or or they rock back or that rock back I would sit down on the box stay tight I'd wait about two seconds and then I'd stand up and what I took from that was my the strength at the bottom of my Squat got so much better Oh, yeah It made me way stronger at the weakest part of my squat And I think it's because when you're at the bottom and you sit there for a dead stop You're at a dead stop you're and you're you're you're getting rid of a little bit of that that Elastic rebound that you get from the bottom of an exercise I would have to lift from almost a dead, you know position I would make the argument that it's similar benefits as pause squats You know, it's you're taking momentum out, right? That's and I think that with with with squatting and and less so with dead lifting But with squatting, especially you get that major rebound effect of bouncing off the back of your calves and the Release and they pop back up whereas if you stop and you pause for two or three seconds and then come back up I mean, that's very similar to the the box squat feel where you're sitting You're completely stopped and they come you know, you could also you instead of using the box to you could also use like a the rack and Come to the bottom of the until the weights hit the rack and then you're the bottom and then come from a dead A dead stop like you can but the box a little different because when you sit on it Even though you're staying tight in your core your muscles do relax Far more than if you're supporting it at all, right, right And so you kind of sit down pause for a second come up and the the the carry over the reason why the guys from Westside barbell did it was because of the carry over when you when you got stuck in your regular squats You started doing some box squats all of a sudden your regular squats start to go through now You're training the recruitment process. You're enhancing that problem in the most vulnerable part of the exercise, right? The one where you're down at the bottom of your squat Typically, you're not gonna produce the most the most force in that position and so to then you know fixate on that part of The exercise where you know, you typically you don't have that much force production Now let's let's train that to really like hone in and focus on generating more force without it It's gonna benefit you tremendously now. We're making the case for how how great they can be I'm gonna make the case for the other side too that it's it's not the most valuable thing for the average person I think more people would benefit from working on their their squat depth and getting better range of motion than loading the bar heavier and Shortening the range of motion up and going heavy as far as the carry over it has for strength and building a squat up Incredible, so I think it's an incredible tool like many other tools And that's the reason why Westside barbell uses it and does it, but for the average client I had more people that Were stuck at not being able to get a squat to 90 or beyond 90 and so putting a box underneath them where they don't even hit 90 Degrees or barely do hit 90 degrees I didn't load it can normally what people do with box what's to is they load it heavy really heavy I don't see a lot of value in that for the average person I use box squats more for the average person to actually treat to teach form Yes, I was just gonna say I was gonna give you some pushback because I loved box squats for the average person for former I like to teach them how to sit like it was a great way to teach someone how to sit back Like if you get a client and trainers will understand this that are listening You know sometimes Cuing hinging at the hips is like what the fuck does that mean to Susie? Who's you know 65 and is never fucking doesn't know what that means, right? But telling them sit back on the box and because the box will catch them right not afraid to exactly So they get more comfortable with the the movement pattern of sliding the hips back and sitting down into a seat or a chair So that's how I used a box or their wet that which is not how West Side barbell West Side barbell is using it for the what we talked about the beginning which is building strength tons of value for it I think it's amazing for those reasons But when I when I think back to the average person that I train which is I think the majority of people probably listen this podcast I'm not really using box squats that often unless it's somebody who's like really new I'm teaching how to hinge back, but if it's like the Average person who's been weightlifting for a couple years It's just not a tool that I use that often it's for so the first time when I started doing box squats with other people It was this is when I started to understand priming. This is box squats Actually what led me to really start to understand the the difference between priming and warming up because I noticed When I'd have my regular clients do box squats before they squatted their squats look better And it was because exactly what you're saying it taught them It got them in the right recruitment pattern and feel in fact maps anabolic box squats are put in there before Traditional squats specifically for that reason this is before you know ever ever talked about or created a program like maps prime Well, I too I think that it teaches supportive muscular tension That is necessary, you know in that position because a lot of my clients would go through the you know the movement of it, but then they would bounce back up off the joints and so You would you would see you would see them actually relax, you know down at the bottom position Which would that was very common because you could sort of utilize that that elastic spring effect And then you know, and that's something we're trying to teach against because you know The more you load now like it's gonna compromise the joints, you know down the road So I'd looked at it as a great way to then you know teach So now I'm at this bottom position. I have no momentum to spring up off of how do I get up? You have to you know really utilize your central nervous system, you know recruit Squeeze you got to be tight your muscles have to be really involved that way