The Box Squat has been around for decades but was not really popular until the 1990s by strength coach Louis Simmons (who was heavily influenced by US Olympic Hammer Thrower George Frenn, a world record holder in the squat).

One benefit of box squats is that they require less recuperation time than regular squats. People strive to keep their shins perpendicular to the floor when squatting. Yet, box squats allow an athlete to go past this point because it puts the stress on the hips, glutes, lower back, and hamstrings.

These muscles are called the posterior chain. This refers to the backside of an athlete’s body. A weak posterior chain is much more common than a weak front side, and box squats are one of the most effective modalities for developing a strong posterior chain.

Depth is not an issue when box squatting because either your butt was on the box or it wasn’t. This eliminates unnecessary guesswork.

Box squats are performed in a similar fashion as regular squats. Some key points to remember: Fill your abdomen with air as you push your stomach out (or your could say “abdominals out”. Push your knees out to the side and push your butt back (do not concentrate on sitting down but sitting back) Keep the back arched as you sit your butt completely on the box and pause then come up. When sitting on the box every muscle is kept tight (excluding the hip flexors). When the athlete releases, then contracts the hip flexors along with arching the upper back, he will explode off the box building great starting strength. Additionally, box squats teach the athlete to explode up using the hips, hams, and glutes. This is very important for any sport that requires explosive movements.

Check out Josh doing a 700 box squat on 9” box.

Rate of Force Development (RFD) is important in all aspects of football, but it is of particular importance in delivering a blow to an opponent. Remember, the amount of force a blow delivers is mass times acceleration (M x A) and power is force x distance divided by time (F x D / T). With this in mind, if you are strong but not explosive, you will not be laying the wood! Conversely, if you can develop maximum force rapidly but your maximum force is lacking, you will not be hitting with devastating power!

Unlike foundational limit strength training, RFD is viewed favorably by most trainers. But, just because trainers universally accept the importance of RFD enhancement, it does not mean that they train the enhancement of RFD correctly. Countless examples would prove this! For example, many believe that simply doing some jumps for conditioning at the end of a workout or doing a kettlebell conditioning circuit, is all that is needed to enhance RFD. Doing explosive/circuit training is an oxy moron and bastardizes the results for both motor abilities.

Strength is the ability to contract muscles with maximum force. If you can deadlift more than the average amount for your age, weight, and experience level, does that mean you can hit harder than average?

Even with good technique, if you cannot develop tension in a muscle quickly, the answer is no! To be truly dominant on the field, you must be able to rapidly develop force.

Here are a four exercises that offer a high degree of dynamic correspondence to football that will keep you hitting hard for four quarters.

Compensatory Acceleration Training (CAT) Deadlifts - Do 50-60% of your 1 rep maximum for 8-12 singles with maximal force.

CAT Deadlifts (With Bands or Chains “Accommodated Resistance”) - Use 40-45% of your one rep max, with an additional 10-20% extra resistance of bands or chains. By complementing the strength curve of the lift, you bypass the negative acceleration of the lift, which is the down fall of CAT. As you extend your hips, resistance increases, and harder more violent hip extension means harder hits on the field.

Tire Flips - Extend your hips fast and hard, push the tire over as hard and fast as possible. Unlike a power clean, in which you reach triple extension of the ankles, knees, and hips and then must catch the bar in a passive position on your heels, extension in the tire flip one gets to violently push it down, as if he were an opponent. When you have the son of a gun on his heels, put him on the ground! Use light enough weight so you are still explosive enough to do 3-6 sets of 3 repetitions.

Jump Squats – Again, a great triple extension movement with a very simple learning curve. Do 10-20% of your squat max for 3-5 sets of 2-4 reps. Be sure you can squat minimally double bodyweight before implementing jump squats.

Below is a picture of my brother Noah, a world class shot putter, flipping a 1200 pound tire at Odd Haugen’s house. Odd and I are watching. Notice the triple extension Noah gets. Obviously, a much lighter tire would be appropriate for building explosive strength!

I wanted to congratulate one of my clients, Michael Boettcher. Michael is a football player at North Central Illinois University, one of the top Division 3 programs in the United States. Michael came to me with a goal of increasing his max effort strength. Michael started with maxes of 405 in the squat, 350 in the bench press, and 450 in the deadlift. Over the last twelve weeks, he has done just that; Michael has increased his maximums to 465 in the squat (with a close miss at 480), 375 in the bench press (with a close miss at 385), and a 525 deadlift! Michael worked extremely hard and, despite being a full time student athlete and having a job, he did everything I asked. Michael paid attention to detail and was good about sending videos to me. The technical adjustments we made with the aid of the videos were instrumental in his success. Michael, I was honored to work with you; I really your hard work.