Selecting Box Heights

Choosing appropriate box heights is one of the most commonly messed up selection members make and unfortunately, it happens with probably the most risky exercise we do, box jumps. But, if you’re reading this article, you’ll be able to select an appropriate box height to optimize your workouts and dramatically reduce the risk associated with jumping on top of boxes. In a workout, you may see things written like this:

Something important to note is that our box height selection for box jumps is different than step-ups, so you’ll likely have two different sets of heights you’ll use for these exercises.

Box Jumps

For Box Jumps, everyone is very different and you really should start out extremly conservative on your estimate for what height is low for you. It is easy to get caught up seeing how high of a box the best athletes in the gym use. For a “low” descriptor, the best in the gym (Level 4) can jump on and off a 24” in box, without stopping, 300+ times in a row. “Low” is the most common descriptor we use in box jumps, so to make sure you’re in the right range, start at a height that feel’s very easy and that you could confidently jump on 50+ times in a row. Keeping it low 1) increases the intensity we are able to push in workouts, 2) gives you taller heights to use for our “medium” and “high” descriptors, but more importantly 3) reduces risk of injury tremendously.

For example: Let’s say a workout calls for a Low box. To be conservative, you select an 8 inch box. After the workout, you are confident that you could have gone higher. Great! Maybe 12" would have been a good box height for your “low” descriptor. That would put your box heights for box jumps in the Level 1 category:

  • High = 20” Box

  • Medium = 16” Box

  • Low = 12” Box

  • Very Low = 8” Box

Box Step-ups

It’s still a box, but you will likely use a different height box for box step-ups than you do for box jumps. The height we choose for box step-ups will be similar to how we choose how low we should squat. For a squat, we go as low as our mobility allows. The Standing Knee Raise from our Movement Test page is how we figure out what box heights to use for the Box Step-up. We will perform a standing knee raise (make sure to test both hips and use the lowest of the two) and then use our foot height from the standing knee raise to determine our box step-up height:

  • High = at Foot Height,

  • Medium = ~4 inches below Foot Height, and

  • Low = ~8 inches below foot height.

If you are newer, you’ll likely need to scale the box heights down more to meet your current level, but can still use the 4 inch relative box height differences to determine your high, medium, and low levels.

Now that you understand how to select your box heights, if you want to get a better feel for how we customize the other parts of your workouts from selecting barbell weights, selecting dumbbell (DB) and kettlebell (KB) weights, how we describe different levels of effort for cardio exercises, and how to scale bodyweight exercises like pull-ups and push-ups, you can explore more through the buttons below:

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