Dips: You're Doing Them Wrong

Done Right, Dips Are Good for the Shoulders

The shoulders must be packed into the ideal position to achieve optimal stability, mobility, joint integrity, and force production. All of that requires a few basic maneuvers:

  1. Pull the shoulders and scapulas back.
  2. Pull the shoulder complex down toward the hips while maintaining the pulled-back position.
  3. Rotate the shoulders in toward the spine, producing external rotation.

Doing dips with good form can actually be therapeutic on the shoulders while building muscle strength. But it's imperative to master the correct setup and form to get the benefits.

Proper Dips Tuorial

13 Tips for Proper Dip Technique

Thes following tips complement each other. The end result is a perfect dip.

1. Learn to Hinge

Lifters often stay excessively upright to target the triceps, or flexing and rounding the spine to emphasize the chest. Both place the shoulder joint into a potentially dangerous, internally rotated position. The hinge position sets the hips back and tilts the torso over to an optimal 45° angle.

The hinge is optimal for moving in a natural free motion. One of the best variations to learn the hinge/torso tilt is chain dips (chains draped over the upper traps and neck). The chains push the torso over, giving the appropriate kinesthetic sense of a proper torso tilt.

How to Do Chain Dips

2. Hollow the Core

Hollowing the core and hinging at the hips work together. It's similar to the what gymnasts do on rings and parallel bars, pulling the stomach in, tightening the abs, and setting the hips back, while creating tall posture. You should feel the spine set into a stable position with an activated core.

3. Don't Sag

Don't allow your body to sag with little to no core activation. Similar to the "core hollowing" cue, focus on getting tall and having your torso in front of your hands. Get as "tall" as possible over the dip bars. One of the best dip variations to nail this cue is the straight-bar dip. If there's any sagging, your stomach will run straight into the bar.

How to do Straight-bar Dips

4. Eliminate Rounded-Spine Posture

Lackihg hip hinge causes spinal flexion. This sets the shoulders up and forward, with internal rotation, all of which should be avoided.

5. Flex the Lats

Activating your lats while keeping a tall posture optimizes spinal alignment. That helps position your shoulders for correct dip mechanics. Flexing the lats also helps keep the elbows tucked to the sides, a critical factor for shoulder health.

6. Focus on 3D Shoulder Mechanics

The shoulders need to do three things during a dip:

  1. Pull shoulders back.
  2. Pull shooulders down.
  3. Rotate shoulders toward the spine.

Too often lifters do the exact opposite during dips.

7. Accentuate the Eccentric

Focus on body mechanics rather than doing as many reps or lifitng as much weight as possible. Concentrate on the eccentric component by going slow and pausing at the bottom. If you master the lowerng phase, the lifting phase will take care of itself.

8. Don't Dip Past 90°

Don't go too deep, which takes tension off the working muscles stresses tendons, and ligaments. A 90° elbow bend is the most biomechanically sound bottom position for dips, not just for joint health but also for strength and size gains.

9. Don't Overstretch

Overstretching stresses the tendon rather than the belly of the muscle and can can create extreme soreness in the joints and surrounding connective tissue. Even worse, you can tear a pec or ruin your joints. If size and strength are more your thing, then 90 degrees is best.

10. Pull Toes Up

Dorsiflexion of the ankles (pulling toes up) creates greater stretch on the hamstrings and emphasizes the hinge. If you have trouble here, try the dorsiflex weighted-dip variation. Besides being an immediate fix for ankle dorsiflexion, it forces very strict form. Any kipping, shifting, jerking, or wiggling will launch the weight off the feet.

How to do Dorsiflex Weighted Dips

11. Keep a Tall, Neutral Head Position

Head position is critical for dips. The goal is to keep a tall, neutral head in line with the spine. If the head drops, it leads to rounded spine. Pulling the head up produces upper-trap and neck tightness. When the upper traps become tight, you'll find it nearly impossible to properly activate the lats and pack your shoulders.

12. Mimic a 45° Bent-Over Row

Just as you'd never perform a bent over row with a flexed spine or rounded shoulders, the same principles apply to the dip. The bottom of a dip and the contracted position of a 45° bent-over row should appear almost the same. As such, the 45° bent-over row with plates is an effective drill for grooving the appropriate neural pathways of the dip.

How to do Semi-bent over Plate Rows

13. Think Push-up

Visualize using the same mechanics on dips as what you use for perfect push-ups. That engrains the notion of the elbows moving along the torso line near the lats rather than drifting toward the ears.

Bonus: Don't Target the Triceps!

A properly performed dip should involve the upper body with equal stress across the joints and musculature rather than isolating a specific area. It places the lifter into the strongest position to handle the most weight for the most reps, ultimately maximizing muscle growth.

If the goal is to target a specific muscle group, like triceps, there are more efficient methods for that. Rather than butchering your body's natural mechanics and reinforcing faulty movement, try using pre-exhaustion or pre-activation while maintaining the ideal mechanics and technique for the dip.

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