Barbell Front Box Squat

Set the J-hooks at about chest height and load up the barbell with the appropriate weight. Set a box at the back of the squat rack so that the corner of the box is in between your legs when you sit down. If unspecified, the box height should be at a height where your hips and knees are parallel at the bottom or so that your hips are an inch below your knees at the bottom. If that height is 18 inches and you only have a 16 inch box, you can add a plate onto the box to increase its height. Approach the bar and put your pointer fingers and middle fingers on the bar about shoulder width apart or wider. The better shoulder and wrist mobility you have you can use 3 fingers or even 4. Flip your elbows through and pick up the barbell keeping your elbows high with the bar resting near your collar bones. The bar may press slightly on your neck and there should be some discomfort here until you get used to the front rack position. Walk the bar back so you are in front of the box. Your feet should be parallel or very slightly pointed out to avoid the knees caving in. Stand up straight, take a deep breath, hold your breath in your stomach and brace your stomach by expanding your stomach into the entire belt, not just the front. If you don’t have a belt imagine you do and follow the same technique to take load off of the spine and onto the abs. Sit all the way back onto the box keeping the torso tight the entire time. A back squat will have vertical shins when squatting to a box, but this may not be possible with the front squat, so having the knees over the toes is normal here. Relax the hip flexors only for a second and then reengage the hips to stand up with the bar. Catch your breath and then re-brace for the next rep. When you are done with the repetitions, run the bar straight into the rack and lower it on the J-hooks.

Trainer Tips: Make sure you set your safety pins a few inches below where the barbell will be when you are at the bottom of the squat. If you fail you can just lean slightly forward and dump the bar on the safety pins. Also when you rerack the bar, try not to look left or right and go off of feel not vision. Looking left and right can cause the bar to tilt and potentially miss one of the hooks. We are sitting all the way back here to make the squat more hip and glute dominant. This will be a different form than a regular free-squat but will translate to the free squat by teaching you to use the stronger muscles and not just leg-press the weight with your quads.