Lately my wife and I have been doing a lot of Crossfit workouts. I love the efficiency of a 15-minute full-body workout that leaves you sore for days. Also, the results are pretty impressive.
Anyway, one of the common exercises are box jumps, and I’m a jumper. For whatever reason, jumping comes very naturally to me, so I wanted to have a tall box. My wife is also a good jumper, so I didn’t really need a very short box. We also have limited space, so I was happy to have a rectangle solution that satisfied 20″, 24″ and 30″ heights for box jumps, but I couldn’t find any plans that made the building part easy. So, I made my own, and am now sharing the plans.
Download 20x24x30 Plyo Box Plan (.pdf)
[showpics]
Note: the plans deviate from how I actually built my box, but after giving it a lot of thought, I’ll build the box exactly as I describe in the plans next time.
Download 20x24x30 Plyo Box Plan (.pdf)
Disclaimer: I am not an expert box builder. This is simply the way I built my box, and I decided to share it. I am only 150lbs, and have not thoroughly tested the endurance of the box at higher weights, by downloading these plans, you are recognizing that you may not hold me personally liable if your box breaks. If you do have suggestions for improvement, please post them in the comments.
Love the plans…Will be useful for my own build!
Joseph… amazing… truly amazing!! Have been looking for a multi-height plyo box “how-to” for months. Thank you for writing this up and making it available to the public. I know that the Crossfit community as a whole will eat this one up!! I was wondering if you would be open to writing up a “how-to” (version 2.0) to include rubberized caps on each side of the box? We have built a box at our facility that we finally put rubber mats on and it really helps us out with that fear of messing up our shins if we don’t quite make the jump all the way. I also think this would help your box from sliding… giving it a bit of traction / grip on the bottom side of the box (no matter which side it is layed on). Just a few thoughts from a fellow crossfitter…
Regards,
Justin Southwick
Ogden, UT
Justin, you guys are the reason I put it out there. I had thought about rubber mats, what solution did you come up with? How did you fasten them to the box?
Joseph,
Sorry for the long delay. We just used grabber screws and screwed them right to the top of our boxes. In addition to the screws, you could probably put some type of adhesive between the two if you like. We are using the heavy duty rubber matting that is used in horse stables (stable matting).
Mate these plans are fantastic, you have no idea how long I’ve been searching for a multi-height plyo box, and I wasn’t expecting to find some of this quality and detail! I’m going to crack on today and get myself one made, and great call there from Justin about the rubber shields, could save my legs when trying that 30″ jump! Hoping your CrossFit training is coming along well, I’m aiming for the European Regionals next year after missing out this year!
Thanks mate and speak soon,
Gary Butterfield BSc
Leeds, United Kingdom
Joseph, thank you so much for all the time and effort it must have taken to develop this amazing diagram and instructions! A jump box is such an important piece for any gym. I have spent the last few days scouring the web for plans to build a three sided plyo box for my garage, this is perfect. Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend? I can’t wait to get jumping! Love the web site as well, added it to my favorites.
God IS good.
Thanks again,
Michael
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Thank you Joseph! This is exactly what I was looking for!! Weekend project, here I come!
Usually I would try to be a little more nice with my comments but this probably the worst box structure I’ve ever seen. For starters, I’m imagining a 200lb person falling straight through the 30″ side of this box! There’s no structure whatsoever to you 30″ side! 24″ side was giving a little?? I’m surprised you made one jump! first you had no structure before putting the middle plywood in and second, your support 2×4’s don’t even reach the joining supports! This is a disaster waiting to happen and I seriously would be afraid for anyone using it or these plans.
Not that you couldn’t work your design a bit to make it structurally sound for jumps from all sides but your design needs some serious changes.
First off, all of your support beams should be butted right up against each other. The floating 2×4’s in your photo give no support and the only thing it may act as is a last resort stopper in case the plywood but joint breaks. Second, you need support throughout from all angles and the joints should be in direct contact with another support or plywood plank. It would be too difficult to explain a well engineered box that will support load but some of it is just common sense.
Please anyone using these plans, be careful and add more supports if you can, make sure the joints touch completely, and please please don’t use the 30″ side of this box!
I’m really sorry to whoever created these plans and I don’t meant to put your hard work down, but with every design should come improvements. Please think about all of these things!
I’m sorry to leave a negative comment!
Dan,
Thanks for the feedback. You do mention some flaws with the design, though you seem to be quite irritated about them. I would ask you for suggestions, but I’m sure you don’t own the email you provided, anonymous@anon.com, if you do return to the site and see this comment, please feel free to provide some additional info if you don’t think it’s over my head. I’m very interested to see your box plans. Ok, enough with my pithy comments, and onward to my defense.
I don’t claim to be a box building expert, in fact by simply glancing around your screen here you should be able to see who I am and what I do.
So, for everyone else that may be visiting, I have added a disclaimer to the bottom of the page. I’m only 150lbs and have never had any problems with my box or this box design. I’m not saying it might not need reinforcements if you’re a good bit heavier than me, simply saying that I would never share or suggest that anyone build something that could put them in harm’s way.
Joseph,
What are your thoughts on building a Plyo-Box v. 2.0? We could take the comments that Dan made and totally revamp it and at the same time incorporate the rubber matting that I recomended previously? Going to talk to my brother and see if we can come up with some ideas.
BTW… the comments that Dan made previoulsy are a little excessive. Has he seen how most Crossfit Plyo-Boxes are built? There isn’t a sigle plan that I found before coming accross your site that actually uses 2×4’s for any type of reinforcemnt. All the plans that are out there are pure plywood… nothing else. I would imagine if these were breaking that you would see all sorts of posts on Crossfit HQ’s forums / message boards. I have no problems with your plans… however, there might be room for some cool improvements. Will stay in contact.
Justin
Ogden, UT
Joseph, (and Justin),
Good idea on the 2.0 version. And regarding Dan’s comments, I have built many boxes, both angled and straight-sided. And I have actually built several with a design similar to yours. I also reinforced the long side and yes Dan, I made sure the supports were joined. I used 3/4″ plywood and they have all done just fine. I did, however, reduce the lengths and added box stall matting to the sides. It’s really amazing how unsupported many of the boxes out there really are and yet how few actually break. Most of the weight is on the edges where the support is the greatest. I think this is a great start!
Yeah guys, that’s definitely a good idea. On my iPhone now, but I want to follow up on this. More to come soon. I’m also working on hanging a pull-up bar between two trees…and a few other home-brew equipment fixes that I look forward to posting about.
Joseph,
Great Site!
I have been using your design for months now and haven’t had a issue. The only change that I made was to connect all the 2x4s on each end as I was putting together. Basically just reinforcing the seams and supporting the joints… This box will not fail. I stacked up 2X45lb Rubber Hi temp plates on the 30″ end and repeated jumped on it. (180# body weight). I Couldn’t be happier but if you are improving the design let me know and I willing to help with the 2.0 beta version.
I subscribed but i cant get the plans to work it just sends me to a page that has an error. Please help
Hey Abenadi,
Sorry about that, I updated the file via Amazon S3, but failed to make it public. The link should work now. You should have the link in your inbox.
Sincerely,
Joseph
Hey Joseph,
This past weekend I took your plans and went at building the plyo-box with my uncle. The box turned out great! I actually didn’t use 2×4 on the corners, I just stuck with 2×2’s all the way through. I did however seal up the entire box as I went building it with massive amounts of wood glue. I believe the glue is paramount to having the entire structure become one main support.
AS far as the comments made by Dan above, I believe he puts in fair input. However, there is always something that can be done better. I believe he makes a viable point when he says that the joints should all flush together. This will help create more support especially to that 30″ side.
Overall man I really appreciate you putting up the plans. I want to say that the cutting diagram and color coordination that you put up was AWSOME!! You pointed out exactly how you could get all pieces needed out of one 4×8! Kudos on your plans. Thanks so much for putting up these plans as they are a great start to building a great box. Meaning if anyone needed to add anything or re-support the sides in pre-determining the abuse that the box might take, then great!
Again thanks Dan,
Take Care and God Bless
J
Joshua,
Good job on your box and decreasing the weight without cutting back on strength by switching to the 2×2’s. Did you go ahead with the center support piece of plywood as well?
Stanley