Reactive Training Systems

I used to do low box squats for speed before my deadlifts when I was on a traditional American powerlifting template. Now I have them in my speed squat slot in my sheiko-esk routine. I think low box squats are an excellent exercise for your hips.

With that said, I would not do them before squats. I would say heavy squat monday, speed low box squat/heavy pull thursday. I personally just liked that setup much better than squatting towards the end of the week.

Yeah, I realise Im a stronger belt and wraps lifter thats definite, but if totally raw box squats are a weakness, shouldnt you carry on with them to make them stronger, I read that westside barbell bring up all their weaknesses to make them stronger, or do you not agree with that?

I will keep the back squat, bench press and deadlift the important lifts to train hard and heavy, everything else is just assistance work, and going heavy on assistance work or getting pbs on them dont really bother me that much as getting pbns on the main 3 powerlifts.

Dano touched on an important concept -- just because you're relatively weak in an assistance exercise means nothing about determining a so-called weakness in the competitive lifts.

Determining your weaknesses should 1) be done using the competitive movement (because that's what you care about) and 2) not be muslce-based but movement-based.

I can't be totally sure without examining your training more closely, but I'm fairly certain that a crappy box squat would have no effect on how I would program training for you. Now, a crappy raw squat... that's another story.

That's fine. Box squatting is fine, too. There's tons of variations that work. But you shouldn't care about that. You care about what works for YOU. So, reason through it. Why would full squats help any more than your regular powerlifting squats? Same question for Box Squats for that matter.

Or another way to address it is to see where your problems in a Powerlifting squat arise and select an assistance exercise to address that issue.

And the exercise is only one part of the problem. Your protocols HAVE to be constructed in a way that makes sense long-term. Just doing one heavy and one for higher reps won't cut it. When you're working on template, just work on template and save the loading parameters for that part of the programming process.

Basically, have a reason for everything you do and don't do.

I'm not trying to pass judgement on your programming. Believe me, I know different methods affect different people differently. Actually, I've based my ENTIRE training philosophy on it. I'm just trying to get you to do the same. "Some other people I know got good results from it" is a crappy reason for you to do it as well. That kind of trial-and-error is so hit and miss, it makes no sense. The more detail you can account for, the more likely you will succeed.

Your reasons for not doing leg extensions and leg curls are fine, but you need to apply that same resoning to all exercise selection. For example, I do Olympic squats because the oly shoes push my knees forward. This recruits more quad. I select these because I feel they address a need (more quad stress). I select these instead of, say, front squats because of loading parameters, specificity, etc.

You may go through this process and decide this is still the the exercise for you. I care much less about your exercise selection and much more about your thought process.

My whole point -- for everyone -- is that when selecting movements, protocols, etc, you need to justify it. Brady has a good template for this (although I don't have it and I forgot a lot of it). He would actually write out his justification for movement selection.

Try this template:
1) What is my range of motion weakness in the squat (for the love of God, don't attribute it to muscles -- only ranges of motion)?

2) What exercises address this range of motion deficiency?

3) Of these exercises, which one is best suited for me (taking into account other movements, movements scheduled for other lifts, overall stress to the body, potential protocols, etc)

It's not really isn't a matter of sticking points per say. Sticking points in the traditional sense may or may not give you an idea of your "weakness" but they may be misleading as well. For example, my "sticking point" for the deadlift is off the floor, but that's also where my leverage is worst, so I expect to be weak there and I just need to gain overall strength.

Back to you...
From the sound of it, your weakest point in the squat is in the bottom. Similar to my deadlift, that's probably where your leverage is worst. In that case, I wouldn't look toward "weakness correction" to get your squat up. It's about improving your overall force generation.

Box squatting isn't necessarily a bad choice for you or anybody. I'm nit-picking here to make a point about the psychological approach to training. If you want to box squat, clearly you don't need my permission.
Box squatting may work the same muscles as a squat, but neurologically it is quite different from the squat. One of the so-called benefits of Box Squatting is that it removes the stretch reflex. The stretch reflex is something that can be trained and detrained like most other motor actions. So, let's say for example a lifter did nothing but box squat. Conventional wisdom would say that he should have a very strong bottom part of the lift, but in my experience, these people have average bottom end strength and are average squatters in general (I'm sure there's and exception here or there). The guys who have magnificent bottom end strength actually use a huge amount of stretch reflex (clearly a trained behavior) and don't seem to box squat all that much.
Getting back to your situation, I think box squats, rack squats, pause squats, etc are fine for certain situations. If you want to use it, I'd make sure to keep it for only short cycles and rotate it out with a movement that will compensate for the negative effects.

The idea of it being less stress on your CNS because there's less weight on the bar is faulty logic in my opinon.
There is some CNS Stress generated from walking a weight out, holding it on your back etc. This will clearly be greater as the load increases. But the majority of CNS stress comes from the movement itself and is directly related to motor unit activation (as well as mental arousal, etc). These things are determined by motor unit activation (of which effort is a good gauge). So what's more stressful, a max effort equipped squat or a max effort raw squat? I would say technically, the equipped squat would be more stressful, but only by a negligable degree. That is to say, in the practical sense, they are no different with regard to CNS stress. So what about box squats being less stressful on the CNS? That will be determined by protocol, not by movement alone.