Box Jumps: More Than Meets The Eye

Endurance is often the primary focus by runners when programming exercises, since it is key to lasting longer on the road when running a marathon.

However, experts agree that strength conditioning is also key to complementing a full range of physical activities to maximize your running abilities that in fact could make cover even farther distances and make you endure running longer.

Let experienced runner and writer Duncan Larkin walk you through a tried and tested strength-enabling routine.

Article “Box jumps are an excellent plyometric exercise for building explosive muscular strength in the hamstrings, glutes and quads—strength that comes in handy during the final miles of a long run or at the end of a race, and also for helping you ward off injury.

Strength Training for Runners: Box Jumps

If you’ve never done a box jump before, start with a 6-inch platform (which can be done on a box, stairs or a park bench) and slowly progress to 12, 18 and eventually 24 inches—but no higher. “The injury risk increases with higher boxes,” cautions Jim Wharton, co-author of the Wharton Health Series. Attempt 6–8 reps per set, and 3 sets every time you progress in height. Read full article

How can someone benefit from jumping up and down a box? You might ask, as jumping up and down can be a no-brainer.

But wait a minute, in order to get the most benefits out of box jump exercises you really need to know the grainier details like the height of the box, the approach prior and post launch and more.

Doing it wrong will definitely get you nowhere, but doing it correctly will leave you in awe about the benefits that you can get out of it.

In his article, fitness author and coach Carl Valle details the dos and don’ts of box jumps.

Box Jumps: What are the Benefits?

The primary reason we do jumping exercises is to exploit the stretch-shortening cycle of the legs to improve the use of elastic energy. The rationale for using box jumps in directly improving this quality is questionable because the very nature of plyometric exercise is creating an overload that box jumps do not accomplish very effectively. Remember that box jumps are just vertical jumps with a landing on a box, something that reduces the impact of the body’s displacement. Vertical jumps with just body weight are low-level exercises in terms of strain on the body, so the return, like the forces they are redirecting, are low in return with power development. Read full article

So now you know the benefits of box jumps. Now, probably the next best thing is how in the world can you make box jumping more interesting?

Who can ever be bad at jumping, you might be surprised to find out that there are a lot. In fact, one of them used to be fitness expert and author Krista Stryker, the brains behind the 12 Minute Athlete as she shares why you should love doing it and how it can be fun.

Seven Reasons You Should Fall in Love With Box Jumps

As a basketball player in high school, I may have been pretty decent on the defensive side of things, but for some reason, jumping just was never my strong point. I was so pitiful, in fact, that my dad would ask me if my feet ever actually left the floor when I jumped (my husband has made the same joke years later).

Yep, I was that bad at jumping.

To be perfectly fair, I never actually practiced jumping as a teenager. Sure, I ran lines, and shot lay ups, and didn’t have a half bad three point shot, but jumping? I never even did a jumping jack, let alone a squat jump or a tuck jump. Read on and see the video

As the term implies, there’s no rocket science involved in understanding box jumps, but it surely does give you a good and total body workout.

Make the most out of box jumps and maximize the full potential of those workouts by supplementing on MusclePharm Amino 1, a full-spectrum nutritional performance recovery formula that helps rebuild muscle, increase endurance and promote faster muscle recovery.

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from Muscle Pharm Reviews http://medicalprogress.org/build-muscle/box-jumps/amp/