Originally Posted by
queerpunk
Yeah, I've also heard that. So, why not just vertical jumps?
I don't know why box jumping is necessary, instead of just jumping or just vertical jumps, unless it's for the measurement ability of box jumping. But given the leg-up fact, really seems like straight-up vert jumps would be better.
I don't think people use box jumps to measure leaping ability (or at least I hope not!).
I think the trend to do high box jumps is a bad merging of 2 things:
- People learning that box jumps are an effective body weight training tool.
- People assuming that if a box jump is good, a higher box jump must be better and doing the leg-up thing and fooling themselves (while impressing others).
I think box jumps can be a Poor Man's Power Clean. I also think that Depth Jumps (jumping down from boxes and using your legs in a hack squat formation as shocks) can train the same muscle group via "negative" eccentric contractions.