Last Updated On April 12, 2024
Have you ever thought about incorporating a plyo box workout into your routine? Maybe you’re not sure of the benefits of a plyo box workout or what they involve.
This guide will show you why plyo box workouts have been an essential exercise for some of the world’s top athletes.
What Muscles Do Plyo Box Workouts Target?
If you do a plyo box workout routine, you will push your muscles to a new level. They will help you to improve your agility, strength, and speed.
These workouts target your body’s main muscles for performance, including the quads, core, hip flexors, glutes, calves, and hamstrings.
You will reap definite benefits if you start incorporating plyo box workouts into your routine. Your power and explosiveness will drastically improve.
This is why box jumps and other plyo exercises are fundamental for football and basketball players. They are also great for increasing your vertical jump range and increasing the number of calories burned.
They require strength but also stamina, making them a perfect strength-building exercise. Not only that, but they are also an excellent exercise for improving your balance and coordination.
8 Plyo Box Workouts You Need To Be Doing
1. Front Step Ups
Front step-ups are a great exercise in plyo box workouts for beginners.
How To Do It:
- Place your right or left foot on the box.
- Ensure your foot is firmly in the center of the plyo box, then push up using your heel. This will activate your glutes and hamstrings during the movement.
- At the top of the movement, bring your opposite leg’s knee to hip height while you balance on the box.
- Reverse the movement and return to a standing position.
Tips From A Trainer!
You can choose to alternate feet or just focus on one side. Just keep in mind you need to complete the same number of reps on each side to keep your muscles balanced. You can always add some weight by holding a set of dumbbells.
2. Box Jumps
Gym lovers are big fans of box jumps because they rely on having explosive strength and high muscle mass to complete this exercise.
It’s also a great exercise to target your biggest leg muscles, including the glutes, quads, and hamstrings.
However, if you can't perform this exercise, you can try out box jump alternatives.
How To Do It:
- Face the box with your feet no more than shoulder-width apart. You can also swing your arms to gain some momentum, but your focus should mainly be on producing explosiveness from your leg muscles.
- Bend your knees as much as you need and jump onto the box, landing in a squat position.
- To return to the starting position, jump off backwards into a squat position or step off the plyo box and start again.
Tips From A Trainer!
If you’re a beginner doing this exercise, start with lower-height plyo boxes to make it easy for yourself. You can increase the height when you become more confident.
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3. Up And Overs
This exercise is perfect for a plyo box leg workout and is excellent for those who require more mobility and strength in their legs.
How To Do It:
- Stand with your side facing toward the box.
- Put one foot on the box while the other is on the floor, and push to jump over the box. You can also step on the box with the foot that was on the floor while you jumped over it.
- Then land with your feet opposite where you started from on the other side.
Tips From A Trainer!
For this exercise, many people use their arms to create momentum, but the key here is to focus on powering through your legs. This is a great way to optimize your vertical jump height and improve your speed.
To make it more difficult, increase the plyo box height.
4. Bulgarian Split Squats
This exercise is a classic quad-focused exercise and can be easily added to your plyo box leg workout or a plyo box HIIT workout.
How To Do It:
- Face away from the box, and place the toes of your right foot on the plyo box behind you.
- Stand up straight on your left foot to keep balanced. Then lower yourself down until both of your knees reach a 90-degree angle.
- When you’re in the lowered position, use your standing leg to push back up to the standing straight position.
- Then complete the set number of reps you want before alternating to the other leg and completing the same number of reps.
Tips From A Trainer!
To make this exercise more challenging, you can add some dumbbells or resistance bands to increase the strength needed to get back to the starting position. To make it easier, you can use a smaller plyo box.
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5. Switch Lunges
Switch lunges are another popular addition to many people’s plyo box leg workouts.
How To Do It:
- Start with your feet at shoulder-width apart and stand in a lunge position. You can face the plyo box with your right foot on the box and your left foot behind you. Your legs should roughly be at a 90-degree angle or as near as you can get to it.
- Then jump up by powering yourself up with your right foot on the box. You can switch your legs and stand with your left foot on the box and your right foot behind you.
Tips From A Trainer!
Switch lunges can be exhausting, even for the most avid gym-goers, so make sure you have the correct height of the plyo box and plenty of focus when doing this exercise.
6. Lateral Step Ups
This exercise is similar to the front step ups exercise.
However, the big difference is that your side is facing the box. If you're looking to have a plyo box workout for explosiveness, this plyo exercise will be a great addition.
How To Do It:
- Stand with the box to your right side, then step on the box with your right foot. Then bring your left knee up to hip height as you did before. This plyo box leg workout also requires a lot of core strength to keep balanced.
- Step your left foot back down and tap your right foot to the ground to complete one rep. This move is excellent for targeting the hips and glutes.
Tips From A Trainer!
You can make this exercise more challenging by holding dumbbells. If you really want to challenge yourself, you can also increase the height of the plyo box.
7. Toe Taps
Toe taps are for those who want quick feet on a pitch or court.
If you’re looking for plyo box workouts for speed, adding this exercise to your workout routine will help.
How To Do It:
- Stand in front of the box with both feet on the ground.
- Then raise one foot, tap it lightly on top of the box, and return to the ground.
- Repeat this with your alternate foot. You should aim to do this as fast as you can.
Tips From A Trainer!
To get the most out of this exercise, you should be on the balls of your feet and doing it with only one foot on the ground at any moment during the exercise. Stay on the balls of your feet, quickly tap your foot on the box, then rapidly switch feet. The toe tap exercise is an excellent addition to any plyo box workout plan.
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8. Elevated Glute Bridges
The elevated glute bridge is another great exercise to add to your plyo box workout routine. This exercise targets your glutes and glutes, and it is a very similar exercise to regular glute bridges.
The advantage of doing elevated glute bridges is that it targets your glutes more and reduces the focus on your quads than glute bridges on a flat floor.
How To Do It:
- Lie down and put your feet on the plyo box. Engage your glutes, then push up your hips to be in the air.
- Hold for a few seconds, squeeze your glutes, then slowly lower them down.
Tips From A Trainer!
To make this exercise more difficult, you can add a small weight like a dumbbell, or else you can focus on doing the exercise as slowly as possible, increasing the time under tension.
Benefits Of Plyo Box Exercises
Plyometric exercises will work out your core muscles, help you burn fat, and improve your overall cardiovascular health by improving your stamina and metabolism.
The leading group that benefits from plyo workouts are athletes that require agility and strength, such as basketball players or soccer players. But people who want to increase their leg strength, explosiveness, and speed will also benefit.
In terms of strength and muscle gains, these are among the best exercises you can do.
You won’t put on a lot of muscle through these exercises, but your muscles will get toned and a lot of strength and explosiveness. This is great for anyone looking to improve their athletic performance.
Plyo Box Workout Plan
You don’t need to perform plyometrics for hours and hours every week. These are short, intense exercises. The more explosive the movement, the shorter it will be, but you should still often rest between sets.
For optimal results, you can complete plyometric training exercises 2-3 times per week. It depends on what you’re training for.
If you’re looking to improve your running speed or be more agile on the basketball court, you can keep the workout frequency to 3 times a week.
Plyometric exercises are easy to add to workouts. We recommend doing a 4-split of:
This will give you a well-rounded workout plan to help you get started. All you need to do is add in your favorite plyo exercises, and you’ll be good to go.
Frequently Asked Plyo Box Workout Questions
Yes. Plyometric exercises are great for weight loss. You’re exerting a lot of energy in a short period of time. This type of training is excellent for explosiveness and coordination and is fantastic for burning calories leading to weight loss [1]. They’re also straightforward to add to a workout plan and don’t require much time.
Yes, you can. Simply lie flat on your back with your feet on the box. You can then use this elevation to target your glutes more. You can slowly push your hips towards the sky and remain in control throughout the exercise. This is a fantastic bodyweight exercise that targets your glutes.
Theoretically, you can do plyometric exercises every day if you want. However, this isn’t recommended because it’s a matter of quality over quantity when it comes to plyometric exercises. A lot of these exercises require intense concentration and energy. It's usually recommended to start slowly with these exercises and do them 2-3 times per week max.
Many sports, especially team sports, require athletes to do plyometric exercises [2]. Sports with plyometric training include tennis, basketball, badminton, squash, and soccer. Any sport involving running or intense speed and agility bursts will benefit from plyometric exercise practice.
To get the most out of your plyometric exercises, you should do them before weights. Ideally, you will spend 10 minutes warming up with dynamic stretches to prepare your body for the intense exercises. You can then do your strength training after the plyometric training.
Conclusion
Plyo box workouts are a great full-body workout that you can do either in your own home or at the local gym.
They allow you to do a variety of intense upper and lower body exercises and require a lot of energy, focus, and speed.
If you’re looking to take your speed and explosiveness to another level, these plyo box exercises are perfect.
References:
1.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991639/
2.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5260592/
