Back to the Basics: The Dip

The dip is to the upper body as the squat is to the lower body. If you're not doing this exercise, you should be.

Dips have been both bashed and praised recently, so I’m going to give you a little bit of both here. First, if you take this exercise and go too far, too heavy and too fast, then yeah, you can mess up your shoulders. Let me ask you this though: if you go too far, too heavy and too fast on any exercise what’s going to happen? You’re going to get hurt, right? So do me a favor, just like with everything else I’ve put in this series, pay attention to detail, get it right and progress at an appropriate pace. You'll get to a weighted dip program eventually. In other words, as I say to my athlete’s all the time, “be smarter than dumb will ya!” 

Ok, with the disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk about the pros to this exercise. One is that it’s a great body weight exercise, and last I looked you’re not walking with a bar or a dumbbell in your hands, so that’s always a plus. Second is that this is one of the best strengthening and mass building exercises for the pushing muscles of your upper body. Your triceps, shoulders and chest get worked like crazy doing these, if you do them right. So let’s go through the joint by joint walkthrough here of how to do this great movement correctly.

Starting Position: Now, I know I haven’t touched on this before, but with this movement it’s different because you have to start at the top. It’s hard to really set yourself without starting at the top, so we’ll get you straight and work from there. Grab the handles with your thumbs around the bar! Don’t use a false grip here unless you want to have your hands slip off the bar and become the YouTube icon known as “the fool who’s arm fell off doing dips because he wanted to act like an asshole.” Once you have your hands set, jump up and lock out your elbows. Make sure they are pointing behind you and that your shoulders are pushed down. Now you’re ready to start.

Hands: Just like with all the other upper body exercises, grip the handles as hard as possible. The irradiation effect will increase tension and allow you to use more weight, or get more reps. More weight or more reps equals a stronger you.

Elbows: You will break at your elbows first to start the movement. Bend your elbows and push them back. Tuck them as in the push up, if not further back, almost thinking of pointing them straight behind you.

Shoulders: As you push your elbows back, push your shoulders forward. This should bring about a slight forward lean. This is where you get the stretch in your chest and your shoulders. I said stretch not pull. Once you feel a good stretch, that’s as low as you go. This “should” happen right about the point where you break parallel with your upper arm (and your elbow is just passed a 90 degree angle).

Finish the rep: Go until you hit the stretch and lock out each rep. This exercise is definitely a top “head bob” exercise. Don’t just hit the bottom half, and definitely don’t just bounce up and down at the top. Why? Well you’re not doing it right, and you look like a complete douche bag when you do this. Do it right and get strong will ya!

This can be a challenging exercise if you have long limbs, but it’s definitely not has hard as a pull-up. The athletes I work with over 6’5” can all hit these, and hit them to good depth, so don’t ride excuses. Excuses are the nails that build the house of failure, so get rid of them. Get deep and get strong - it’s that simple. So if you want to see solid increases in strength and size in your upper body go get after some dips.