1. Confessions: the box squat

Although I trained on and off for years, I started lifting consistently in October of 2008, rehabilitating an ankle surgery. Doctor prescribed treadmill walks 30 mins per day. I was training in Pancrase just before that.

As a few weeks went by I couldn’t keep my eyes off the squat rack. Gym owner George was an experienced bodybuilder and I’d always go bother him with questions, picking his brain. He was strong, doing slow reps ass to grass with 600lbs on his back, with just a belt.

Fast forward to January of 2011 and I’m having knee surgery. Torn meniscus and quad tendon reattachment. Work related. June of the same year I’m in Iceland, training at Jakabol. Gym of 4 times World’s strongest man champion Magnus Ver Magnusson. That’s where I met some very strong people. And they were incorporating box squats in their training.

I was hooked. I loved to bench and deadlift. But the squat was my blind obsession. Something about having the bar on my back and my whole body besides my fat head being under it. Adrenaline? The technical aspect of it? The fact that coming back from another surgery, I was squatting less than my bench in knee wraps?

I trained with 3 different teams from 2011 to 2015. We went through practically every squat variation you can imagine. Raw, against bands, reverse bands, box squat safety bar, with chains, in a single ply suit, you name it.

Took years for my squat to pick up. Muscle atrophy and stability issues from the surgery in 2011 caused very slow progress. Squatted my first 440lbs in autumn of 2014. I was primarily box squatting at the time for about a year and a half.

In 2015 I didn’t box squat at all. Experienced with linear periodization and lots of volume training in the 3 lifts. Had pain in my left adductor the whole year. End of the year at a meet, I tore that adductor while attempting my third squat. I was lucky to get my first 2 attempts so I managed to finish the meet.That doesn’t mean that regular squats can’t produce results. But my injuries combined with the large number of repetitions, made my body unfit for the weekly volume.

A few weeks later, I started having issues with 3 discs in my lumbar spine. Yet another injury at work. And that was it. 7 years of hard work gone. December of 2015 I was forced to literally limp back to box squatting one plate per side. I was struggling with 135lbs for 5 -10 singles. I’d go back to reading Louie’s articles about the benefits of box squats. Up to that point I thought I didn’t need to. I was healthy you see. Sometimes we learn the hard way…

2016 and 2017 sucked. All 3 lifts plummeted due to my back. By the summer of 2016 I had come up with my own version of the Conjugate Method. Not taking credit from Louie. I mean that by continuous trial and error I figured out which exercises worked best for me and at what frequency and rotation. Besides…. that’s exactly what the method teaches you. To think for yourself.

Certified as a Westside Barbell strength coach in Autumn of 2016. Went through dozens of people. Whether they were clients, members of my team or just people I wrote programs for. We all box squatted. And we all saw steady progress every year, sometimes twice per year in competition.

Box squats became the staple of my lower body dynamic effort days. My legs grew stronger, raw squat improved along with my deadlift. Managed to go from 135lbs to 520lbs yet again in 2,5 years. My back was hurting but the results were undeniable. Could it be because of the Conjugate Method? I would think so. What I also know is that the doctor was shocked when I told her I never stopped training. Or working, for that matter.

Extreme and constant pain became just constant pain and soreness in my lower back and glutes. I had incorporated all kinds of box squat, deadlift and pressing exercise variations. Luckily enough, Jakabol gym had a reverse hyper machine as well.

I was rotating raw squats every 6 weeks just to see where I’m at. And I’d usually test my squat without knee wraps. This way I wouldn’t go to an absolute maximum but still test myself. From late 2015 till the day I moved out of Iceland early 2019, I was doing box squats every week. Sometimes twice per week.

Best squat I ever did was 665lbs future method (reverse bands). Weight went to 550 as the bands stretched at the bottom. Did that twice between 2017 and 2018. May not be much, but it was the best I could do.

7 plates per side on my back felt like the skies were calling my name, spreading my wings as I  reached Squat Heaven.

There are many articles and even more videos out there explaining the qualities of the box squat in multiple sports, rehabilitation and explosive training. With proper execution and smart programming it can be incorporated into everyone’s training. And it should.

It’s a brilliant way to strengthen your regular squat. Change your stance every week or so. Move your feet in or out by a few inches. Be strong everywhere. Find your strongest stance and build around that. Also, change box heights if you can. Try to be at parallel and below.

Are you a beginner and can’t sit back with proper control? Leave the barbell and grab a dumbbell, plate or kettlebell. Hold them in front of you (like in a goblet squat). Once your hips are able to hold you on the way down, switch to the barbell again.

I’ve actually written programs for clients who trained at home and didn’t have a rack or barbell. So, lots of lunges, goblet and box squats. It’s therapy, it’s rehabilitation, it’s strengthening. It’s for everybody.

Update as of early 2021: I squatted 550lbs again after a ton of box squats in the year of 2020. Box squats and of course exercise rotation with many variations.

I also closed my stance significantly, I can squat the same weight pretty much in close and wide stance now.

Terry Eleftheriou for Conjugate Iron 2020

https://linktr.ee/terryconjugateiron