maratoolBox Skip
How to do the box skip
- You will need several boxes lined up about 8 feet apart.
- Begin facing the first box with one leg slightly behind the other.
- Drive off the back leg, attempting to gain as much height with the hips as possible.
- Immediately upon landing on the box, drive the other leg forward and upward to gain height and distance, leaping from the box. Land between the first two boxes with the same leg that landed on the first box.
- Then, step to the next box and repeat.
Muscles worked
The force comes from the hamstrings, which extend the hip and bend the knee, frequently at both joints in the same repetition.
A plyometric repetition is over before a slow contraction could contribute anything, so they have to produce that force immediately on contact.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the abductors stop the knee collapsing inward and hold the pelvis square; the adductors steady the thigh against the pull away from the midline; the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position.
The glutes and quadriceps take a share of the work as well.
Every exercise for:HamstringsAbductorsAdductorsCalvesGlutes
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under plyometrics, which trains the stretch-shortening cycle: loaded fast, released immediately. Contact time matters more than volume, so these belong early in a session.
What you need
These train the hamstrings too, using equipment this one does not:
- Cleanbarbell
- Double Kettlebell Alternating Hang Cleankettlebell
- Dumbbell Cleandumbbell
- Flutter Kicksbench + body only
- Front Leg Raisesbody only
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 86 hamstrings exercises in this database, 37 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.