How to Perform Dips With Proper Technique
Image Credit :Petranek Fitness (Crossfit LA)’s photostream
Dip are a great exercise to build your chest, shoulders and triceps while working all of your core stabilizers. The movement of the dip is very simple, start on two even bars with your elbows locked at the top, lower yourself until you shoulders are lower then your elbows and lift yourself back to the top and fully extend your arms.
Set up
- Hands- Grip the bars as tight as you can with your thumbs wraps around the bar, the bars should not be spaced much more then a few inches outside of your hips.
- Arms- Your arms are always going to be moving but you need to make sure that at the top of your reps your arms are fully extended and elbows are locked, really squeeze your triceps to get the full benefits of the work out. At the bottom of your reps you want your shoulders lower then your elbows but don’t over do it, if you go to low you can risk injuries to your shoulders.
- Chest- Keep your chest up and you shoulders back, the more you lean forward the more stain you put on the chest muscles rather than the triceps.
- Head- You head should be looking at a 45 degree angle to the floor, try to focus on a imperfection on the ground or pick a spot to keep your focus.
Common Problems
Most problems occur when an inexperienced lifter try to exercise not knowing proper form. Be sure you know the proper technique and have the right equipment before doing the workout.
- Rep Depth- Not going low enough or going to low both are problems that happen all to often at the gym, you need to find the point in between for the most gain in the work out.
- Rep Speed- Many people will try to get as many reps as they can in the shortest possible time, this will compromise form, the negative portion of the rep is most important and when you are dropping down to fast your not getting the most out of the workouts.
- Shoulders- Rolling your shoulders will throw your form off and risk injuries keep your shoulder back and chest up.
Increase Dip Strength
If you can’t do one dip start by doing only the negative of the rep, get a bench to get high enough for a full range of motion on the negative part of the rep, this will build strength allowing you to soon start doing full reps. Also if you get a spotter to hold you feet and give you a little boost this will help, Make sure you do the negative yourself!, don’t get any help from your spotter on the negative portion of the rep.
Once you can do more then 10 reps with perfect form its time to start with weighted dips, with a simple weight belt this will add difficultly to the exercise, only add enough weight so you can’t do 10 reps, once you reach the 10 with that add its time to add some more.
Following these tips you should see a drastic improvement in your dip form and effectiveness of the exercise but you have to make sure to stay dedicated to the gym to see the results.
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[...] great effect on your chest and shoulder muscles. You can do 3 different types of dips including: – parallel bar dips – power rings (usually used by gymnasts) – bench dips (most easily done at [...]