Step up to single leg power and balanced, strong legs.
Drive through the heel of the top foot, don't push off your trailing toes to cheat up.
The barbell step-up is a single leg squat disguised as stair climbing: the top leg's quad hauls your entire body plus the bar upward from a dead position, with the glute steering the hip. Because each leg works alone, it exposes and fixes the strength gaps two legged squats paper over. The catch is honesty, the rep only counts if the bottom leg does not jump in to help.
One that puts your thigh around parallel when your foot is planted, usually about knee height. Higher boxes hit harder but invite cheating and wobbling under a barbell. Nail crisp reps at knee height before raising anything.
Slow the start. Pull the toes of your trailing foot up so only the heel could touch, then drive purely through the top heel. If you still need the bounce, the box is too high or the bar is too heavy.
Both are single leg builders. Step-ups start from a dead stop so they train pure drive with less braking stress, while lunges load the stretch on the way down. They are teammates, not rivals, rotate them across training blocks.
