I am not sure if this is better in the pain/rehab section but I am looking at this from a programming perspective. I selected these on PB3. I have notice if I overdo the step ups I get tightness in the quads that leads to some knee pain. I don’t think it is injury but just tightness. I don’t really feel I am hitting a RPE 7 or 8, the movement seems to be more taxing on my conditioning than my legs. Similar with box squats, being built like a hobbit, my squat pattern never has gotten the “hip drave” into it. I wouldn’t say my squat is high bar but it isn’t as low as it could be. Anyway after box squats my groin muscles were tight and I felt a lot of hip pain after doing them. I think that is more soreness than injury. It didn’t really have as much pain in the hips the next day after the second time doing them. I will note none of this is pain in lifting it is hours or a day after I feel it. In fact after a couple of warm up sets on the competition squat the tightness around the knee kind of goes away. It feels spicy on the first warmup with the bar then feels normal after that.
So the question is it worth doing at lighter weights or if I should just pick better movements. The box squat is teaching me to sit back further and I did hit depth better in the squat after just a couple of weeks of doing them. If I do go down to what might be a RPE 6 but my body handles it better is it worth doing or should I just pick something else. With the step up I have found a higher box with lower weights seems to be better for me than heavier weights at a lower box height. I have chosen 2 leg curls to hit what I think is a weakness in my hamstrings and am using some reverse hypers or GHR for the posterior chain. So is it better to soldier on and work on the tighter weaker points or just select different movements?
I have been watching a ton of videos on the box squat and I think I might be moving more vertical when I hit the box. I plan on getting some video on the next box squats to see what I am doing. Giving my breathing and heart rate I might be hitting on a higher RPE on these I should as well. I noticed that with pause squats as well. I felt like I could do more reps but the heart rate was up and I was breathing harder than what RPE 8 usually feels like.