Box exercises

Which end are you lifting?

Feet up, harder. In a glute bridge, elevated feet start your hips lower and give them a longer way to travel, so the glutes work through more range. The staggered, figure-four and single-leg setups go further still: they move that whole distance onto one side and leave it there.

Hands up, easier. With your hands on the box the torso sits on an incline, so your arms carry a smaller share of your bodyweight. It is the simplest way to get your first push-ups through a full range instead of half reps off the floor.

Back foot up, a different story. In a Bulgarian split squat the box neither adds nor removes load, it takes away the back leg's ability to help. All the work stays on the front leg, and the hand on the support is there purely to keep you balanced.

Why are box jumps somewhere else?

You will not find box jumps on this list, though they are in the atlas. They sit under bodyweight, because what decides that movement is the jump itself and the box is only what you land on - swap it for a stair or a low wall and the jump does not change. Barbell step-ups sit under barbell for the same reason. What is collected here are the exercises where the platform decides how the movement looks.

The line between a box and a bench is a convention anyway. The barbell lateral step-up shows up on both lists, because the exercise does not care what you step onto as long as the height is right. The only thing that really matters is whether the platform holds the load and stays put through the set. Check that before you stand on it with a bar on your back.