For some lifters, nothing beats the upper-body pump they get from a high-intensity chest workout. A lot of these gym-goers hope to construct an even bigger, stronger chest by specializing in the bench press, but mastering the easy and effective body weight dip often goes neglected.

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This staple movement isn’t only for gymnasts or calisthenics enthusiasts. It’s a fundamental old style exercise that’s been utilized by bodybuilders and strength athletes for many years.

Adding dips to your workout routine will goal your pecs, triceps, and shoulders for an all-around larger, fuller, stronger upper body. Here’s how one can use only your body weight to deliver a deep burn and explosive pump on your chest.

How one can Do Dips

Dips may be done on dedicated dip bars, at an assisted dip station, or a sturdy and stable pair of chairs. Whichever setup you’re using, ensure it’s at a height where you’ll be able to keep your legs and feet off the bottom when in the underside (stretched) position. This may allow a full range of motion for optimum profit.

Step 1 — Rise up on the Bars

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Step as much as the dip station and grab the bars with palms your facing inward. Keep your arms straight — depending on the setup, it’s possible you’ll have to sightly jump into the locked out position. Bend your legs barely in order that your arms support your entire body weight.

Keep your back straight and your head looking forward. Engage your core and glutes by squeezing them each to maintain your entire body tight.

Form tip: Ideally, your hands needs to be roughly shoulder-width distance. Some dip bars are angled to permit different grip widths. In case your hands are farther apart, shoulder-joint strain can increase and tension in your chest muscles can decrease.

Step 2 — Lower right into a Stretch

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Slowly lower your body until your elbows are roughly at 90-degree angles, in case your mobility allows. Maintain a forward-looking head position, but let your upper body angle barely forward to extend recruitment of the chest muscles.

Your elbows will naturally angle barely outwards. Avoid excessively flaring your elbows on to the edges, which may increase strain on the shoulder joints.

Form tip: Use a slow tempo to make sure control, maximum muscle tension, and boost muscle growth. (1) Take up to a few seconds to achieve the underside position.

Step 3 — Drive as much as Full Contraction

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Push your body up in a controlled, fluid motion. Stop when you’re back on the starting position with nearly straight arms. Briefly pause at the highest to stabilize your body and minimize any swinging.

As your body rises, deal with feeling constant tension contracting your chest muscles. Engage the mind-muscle connection by focusing your full attention on the pecs and visualize the muscle fibers working.

Form tip: Your body’s path upwards should mirror the lowering phase. Your head and shoulders should arc barely in front of your hands on the way in which down, and your upper body should return to a completely stacked position along with your elbows above your wrists.

Dip Mistakes to Avoid

Dips are a classic body weight exercise that may add strength and size to your chest, arms, and shoulders. Nevertheless, poor form can result in suboptimal results or potential injury, including wear and tear in your rotator cuff tendons. (2) Fortunately, probably the most common errors are relatively easy to avoid.

Locking Your Elbows

In the highest position, avoid locking your elbows ramrod straight. Maintain a slight bend in your arms to maintain them under constant tension and yield optimal muscle-building results. (3) Listening to your arm position at lockout reinforces using a comparatively slow tempo while specializing in maximum muscle recruitment.

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As well as, locking your elbows puts them in a potentially hyperextended state, which can increase your risk of injury.

Avoid it: As your body approaches the highest of the movement, listen not only to your chest muscles contracting, but your arm position. This will likely be difficult to do in the event you use sloppy, swinging repetitions, so maintain a relentless, fluid motion throughout each repetition.

Dipping Too Low

The underside, stretched position of most exercises is where the involved joints are under the best potential stress. Save your shoulders by paying close attention your depth when doing dips.

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Going too low, beyond the purpose where you’re feeling your shoulder muscles stretching, can significantly strain the joints. Remember, form is king with regards to any exercise. Body weight exercises, including dips, are not any different.

Avoid it: As you lower your body into the stretched position, it’s best to feel each your chest muscles and shoulder muscles stretching. Don’t let your ego talk you into using an excessive range of motion. If you happen to can see a mirror through the exercise, pay extra attention as your elbows approach a 90-degree bend. Stopping barely higher is more acceptable than dropping too low.

Advantages of Dips

This basic body weight exercise lets you construct muscle mass and strength in your upper body, particularly your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Mastering strength training exercise along with your body weight may help to reduced your overall risk of injury and improve core stabilization.

Increased Muscle Mass and Strength

Doing dips stimulates your pecs, triceps, and core significantly. By stretching and creating tension on your complete chest muscle, dips are an efficient exercise for enhancing muscle growth. (4) Body weight exercises have also been shown to be comparable to free weight exercises for constructing strength. (5)

Improved Joint Health

Maintaining muscular balance is important for joint stability and overall health and performance, and body weight training is a highly effective solution. (6)

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If you happen to perform many pulling exercises or take part in activities which are pulling-intensive (e.g. training on rowing machines, pull-ups, many combat sports, etc.), frequently performing dips can construct strong pushing muscles to assist prevent muscular imbalances. A ten% increase in strength training volume has shown to substantially minimize overall injury risk. (7)

Improved Core Stabilization

Dips aren’t solely a chest exercise. You’ll engage your core by keeping your lower body stable throughout the movement. While your core isn’t directly trained during dips, it’s strongly recruited to supply total-body stability and coordinated movement as you press. Improved core stability helps to advertise overall strength, health, and injury prevention. (8)

Muscles Worked by Dips

Dips are a highly effective exercise for strengthening the muscles positioned in and across the chest. While dips primarily goal the chest itself, the triceps and shoulders are also directly trained, in addition to smaller stabilizers throughout the upper body.

Pectoralis Major

The pectoralis major is a thick, fan-shaped muscle that’s the most important muscle of the front chest wall. The pecs have multiple functions controlling arm movement including flexion and adduction (bringing the arms toward the body’s centerline)(9)

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The pec major has two heads, the clavicular (upper chest) and the sternocostal (mid and lower chest). When executing dips, the clavicular head is more significantly worked as you approach the top portion of the movement. The sternocostal head is more highly activated as you lower into the stretched position. (9)

Triceps Brachii

The triceps consist of three separate but functionally similar muscle heads — the long, medial, and lateral. These are found on the back of the upper arm. The triceps are accountable for straightening the arm on the elbow joint, extending the shoulder, and moving the arm behind the torso — all of which work in sync during dips. (10)

Dips apply tension on all three heads of the triceps. Interestingly, the medial head, particularly, is more activated when the elbow is flexed beyond 90-degrees and the body reaches a comparatively significant depth. (10)

Anterior Deltoid

The anterior deltoid (front shoulder muscles) is involved when raising the arm forward, in keeping with your body. More particularly, it’s engaged when moving your arm from behind your body to the front and/or overhead. During dips, the anterior deltoid is activated when your upper arm moves from the 90-degree bent position into the highest position along with your arms straight arms by your sides.

The anterior deltoids shoulder not be the first working muscle during dips, but they’re recruited significantly, which is why lifters with pre-existing shoulder problems may not be comfortable performing the exercise.

Abdominals

The abs are worked statically to regulate your lower body and maintain a stable total-body position. Much like performing pull-ups, it’s not unusual for lifters to feel some ab tension (and even post-workout soreness) of their abs after several intense sets of dips.

While your abs aren’t contracting through a major range of motion, they’re recruited to keep up control over the hips and pelvis, and prevent any leg swinging.

Who Should Do Dips

Whether you’re pushing a lawnmower or pushing a weight overhead, having adequate upper body pressing strength is important. Dips may also help to extend muscle mass, improve functional strength, and construct greater upper body mobility.

Bodybuilders and Physique Athletes

Dips are a bodyweight-only alternative to the bench press or other chest pressing exercises. It allows lifters to coach the chest with high tension, high intensity, and minimum equipment. Dips may also help to sculpt the chest by working the pecs at a novel angle, creating an efficient stimulus for growth. (11)

Strength Athletes

Any lifter focused on moving maximum weight in a pressing movement (bench press, overhead press, clean & jerk, etc.) can profit from adding dips to their accessory training. By constructing the chest, shoulders, and triceps, you’ll be able to improve the potential power and strength those muscle can exert. (12) The body weight dip also allows an intense workout with relatively less load, which may reduce cumulative stress on the joints.

How one can Program Dips

Most beginners will find the dip to be difficult since you’re required to lift nearly all of their very own body weight, which may be too difficult attributable to lack of strength. Fortunately, persistence and energy will yield improvement. Experienced lifters may profit from the exercise as a training staple for size and strength.

Unweighted, Moderate Volume (Sets and Reps)

When chasing optimal muscle gains, training the body weight dip with 4 to 6 sets of 12 to fifteen reps, a few times per week may be highly effective. Approach failure on the ultimate reps of every set to make sure appropriate intensity. This total volume provides your chest with sufficient time under tension to trigger muscle growth.

Weighted or Unweighted, Low Repetition

Performing low volume with low repetitions, comparable to 4 to 5 sets of three to 6 reps, is a reliable method to construct strength. This low volume may be achieved by suspending weight from a belt, holding a dumbbell between your feet, or from simply being unable to perform greater than six repetitions with good form.

Performing unweighted, low repetition sets steadily throughout the day is one effective method for constructing strength and improving technique. That is often called greasing the groove and it’s a highly effective approach to master any body weight exercise, including dips.

Dip Variations

Dips may be utilized by lifters and athletes of any fitness level to use tension to the multiple heads of the chest, triceps, and delts. Begin with more manageable versions of the dips while specializing in form, then add intensity and volume as you progress.

Ring Dip

Ring dips are a tougher variation that requires significant muscular coordination, balance, and stability. This exercise applies tension to the pecs through an extended range of motion while also difficult the smaller stabilizers within the shoulders and upper back.

Ring dips are a preferred exercise in CrossFit programming, in addition to general gymnastic-based programs, however the increased recruitment of the upper body stabilizers may also help to enhance muscular coordination and overall shoulder health when programmed appropriately.

Triceps Dip

This very subtle variation uses slight adjustments to your arm and torso positions. These will decrease emphasis on the chest and increase recruitment of the triceps, making it a preferred and efficient arm-building movement.

The primary significant difference from the chest-focused dip is to keep up an upright torso through the descent moderately than leaning forward, to cut back recruitment of the chest muscles. Much more importantly, keep your elbows near your body and aimed towards the wall behind you. (13) Don’t allow them to flare outwards.

Dip Alternatives

If a scarcity of shoulder mobility or pre-existing injury prevents you from executing dips, there are plenty of other exercises you’ll be able to do to proceed adding size and strength to your chest.

Push-up

Good ol’ push-ups. This classic exercise is a superb alternative to dips that also uses your personal body weight to use tension to the pecs and pressing muscles.

Some experienced lifters consider push-ups to be too easy but, like dips, push-ups may be progressed with increased volume or external load to consistently challenge the muscles. The chest and shoulder muscles aren’t put through a major stretch during push-ups, in comparison with dips, making them a really perfect option for lifters with pre-existing joint pain.

Bench Press

The classic bench press is a superb substitute for dips since the potential to maneuver heavy weights can carryover to size and strength gains. Some gym veterans would rank the bench press on par with dips as fundamental chest-building exercises.

The flat barbell bench press is clearly essential for powerlifters, as certainly one of the competitive lifts. Its potential to construct upper-body strength may carryover to other strength athletes including strongmen and strongwomen.

FAQs

Are dips bad for the shoulders?

Using proper form and avoiding the technique mistakes explained above, dips will place more stress on the pecs, triceps, and anterior deltoid muscles as a substitute of the associated joints. This optimal muscle recruitment can significantly reduce the danger of injury.

Nevertheless, if the exercise is executed with improper form or too heavy a load, dips may result in shoulder impingement, potentially straining the rotator cuff tendons. (14) Fundamentally, the principles which apply to all exercises apply to dips — do them properly, with programming appropriate on your fitness level, and also you’ll minimize potential hazards.

How should I program dips with other presses in a chest workout?

Specific programming variables will rely upon various aspects, including your experience level, training frequency, and goals. Generally speaking, performing one to a few various kinds of presses in a single workout may be an efficient approach to train your chest.

Ideally, the exercises will likely be diverse — comparable to the flat barbell bench press, dips, and incline dumbbell press. Redundant training — such performing the flat barbell bench press, flat dumbbell bench press, and close-grip barbell bench press in a single session— will deliver excessive fatigue and minimal results.

Time to Take a Dip

Shoulder injuries, poor shoulder mobility, and lack of “pushing strength” can interfere with day by day life and hinder performance within the gym, on the platform, and on the sphere. Nevertheless, incorporating dips into your training program can pack on muscle, increase strength, reduce injury risk, and enhance physical performance for lifters, athletes, and weekend warriors alike.

References

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2. Mckenzie, Alec & Crowley-McHattan, Zachary & Meir, Rudi & Whitting, John & Volschenk, Wynand. (2021). Glenohumeral Extension and the Dip: Considerations for the Strength and Conditioning Skilled. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 43. 93-100. 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000579.

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5. Calatayud, J., Borreani, S., Colado, J. C., Martin, F., Tella, V., & Andersen, L. L. (2015). Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity leads to similar strength gains. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 29(1), 246–253. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000000589

6. Harrison, Jeffrey. (2010). Body weight Training: A Return To Basics. Strength & Conditioning Journal. 32. 52-55. 10.1519/SSC.0b013e3181d5575c.
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8. Huxel Bliven, K.C., Anderson, B.E. Core stability training for injury prevention. Sports Health. 2013 Nov;5(6):514-22. doi: 10.1177/1941738113481200.
9. National Institutes of Health: Stat Pearls. Anatomy, Thorax, Pectoralis Major Major.
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11. Baz-Valle, E., Schoenfeld, B. J., Torres-Unda, J., Santos-Concejero, J., & Balsalobre-Fernández, C. (2019). The results of exercise variation in muscle thickness, maximal strength and motivation in resistance trained men. PloS one, 14(12), e0226989. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226989

12. Reggiani, C., & Schiaffino, S. (2020). Muscle hypertrophy and muscle strength: dependent or independent variables? A provocative review. European journal of translational myology, 30(3), 9311. https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2020.9311

13. Cinarli, Fahri & Kafkas, Muhammed & Soylu, Abdullah & Yılmaz, Nurkan. (2021). EFFECT OF ELBOW ANGLE ON TRICEPS BRACHII AND PECTORALIS MAJOR MUSCLE ACTIVITY DURING PARALLEL BAR DIP. 27. 57-69.

14. Escamilla, R. F., Hooks, T. R., & Wilk, K. E. (2014). Optimal management of shoulder impingement syndrome. Open access journal of sports medicine, 5, 13–24. https://doi.org/10.2147/OAJSM.S36646

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