CBC Training: What I Have In My Heart

I'LL TAKE TO MY GRAVE

SQUAT DAY

Riddle and James were out, so it was Cook Brothers Crew in full effect at Lexen. The walls shook.

Warm Up:

Static stretching

Dynamic stretching with bands

Safety Squat Bar Box Squat:

Bar x 10

95 x 10

135 x 8

185 x 8

At this point Matt Wenning stopped us and told us politely that we weren't doing the box squat correctly. We were squatting to the best of our abilities, but we weren't using the box in the correct way. Our typical box squat involved us coming to a stop on the box and then coming back up, spending a half a beat on the box. Matt told us that by doing this we were basically free squatting, using the stretch reflex in our muscles to help bring the weight back up. He told us that by stopping on the box for as short a time as we were doing our squat was approximately 70% stretch reflex and 30% pure strength. He instructed us to come to a complete stop on the box. While paused we were to maintain pressure outward, meaning to keep our knees out and tight, and to relax our vertical pressure. I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I just did as I was told, and kept my legs tight, and relaxed my glutes upon pausing on the box. He said that by pausing like this we basically flip the previously mentioned ratio over, making the box squat 30% stretch reflex and 70% pure gorilla strength, which is what we're after. So then we went back at it, doing it in the pausing fashion:

185 x 8

225 x 6

It made a hell of a difference. All of a sudden there was a rough sticking point about 8-10 inches off the box, which Matt instructed us to explode through. By taking away our ability to push off primarily with our quads, and use that stretch reflex, our glutes, hams, and hips are forced to pick up the slack. One more reason why I couldn't be happier to be lifting at a place like Lexen. Where else can I get a 1,100+lb squatter to volunteer himself to help my skinny ass fix a box squat?

Pin Pulls:

We did these from the 3rd hole on the rack, which set the bar just below the knee.

135 x 8

225 x 8

315 x 8

405 x 1

495 x F x 2 (I got overly ambitious and made an ass of myself. Should have gone up by a quarter instead of another plate.)