Box Jumps
Great plyometric exercise which are a great way to improve explosive power, help you jump higher and get faster. Box jumps target your fast twitch muscle fibers, your leg and core muscles have to contract in a very quick manner to generate force. It is very important to focus on a soft landing keeping your knees slightly bent and absorbing the force in your athletic stance to help avoid injury.
Box jumps tax your nervous system. Stay away from using the exercise as a cardio exercise with high repetitions. Go for quality sets between 5-8 reps so that you are developing power. If you are going to use a lot of reps for like in a crossfit workout use a smaller box.
Take a look at our top 4 box jump variations below.
- Sitting Box Jumps – From a sitting position focus on driving your feet through the ground and quickly transferring your energy in order to jump up onto the box.
- Lateral Box Jumps – Work different muscles that you won’t normally hit. It will also get your abductors and adductors of the hip involved. These will help you to become an all around athlete
- Single leg box jumps – Target one leg at a time and great because they help to level out muscular imbalances you may have
- Regular box jumps – Don’t get caught up in how high you can jump but focus on a good hip extension and soft landing. This is the variation which most people will start with
Risks
Like any exercises there are always risks involved. Some of the major risks for box jumps include:
1.Stress on your joints- Jumping up and down can put a high demand on your knees. This is why it is very important to focus on landing softly.
2.Falling off the box – This can happen from mistiming your jump, being tired or setting the box to high. Focus on every repetition instead of trying to rush through
