By Thom Van Vleck

Jerk boxes in the JWC gym. Made by Al Myers.

I own several pieces of equipment that you won’t find in most gyms yet I find them invaluable in my training.  One of these are my Jerk Boxes.  I use them all the time and credit them with saving my shoulders as I age.

I first acquired my Jerk Boxes from my good friend Al Myers.  I told Al what I wanted and we worked out a trade and he made me the beautiful Jerk boxes you see in the photo above. There are dozens of designs and you can buy them or make your own.  But basically they are a table that catches the weight after you drop it after an overhead movement instead of dropping it all the way to the floor or catching the weight on your shoulders or collar bone.

The reason I wanted them was I work overhead presses and push presses a lot and had injured my shoulder catching the weight as I lowered it to my shoulders.  The Jerk Boxes allow me to just drop the weight saving my shoulders wear and tear.  And as I get older I don’t know how much wear and tear my shoulders have left!  If I missed the weight they fell directly on the jerk boxes and didn’t fall all the way to the floor….or worse yet, on ME!

Your only other choice if you don’t want to “catch” the weight every time you do jerks, push presses, or presses is to drop the weight all the way to the ground.  I did that for a while after injuring my shoulder catching the weight on the way down and believe me….it became a real chore unloading the bar and returning it to the rack.

I use my jerk boxes all the time.  I will even use them as squat racks from time to time.  They even make dandy saw horses!  So if you don’t have a set of jerk boxes I would recommend getting them.  They are the second most used piece of equipment in my gym after the power rack (and weights themselves).