This is a response to a question about the best way to perform parallel dips in the comments section of the Ultimate Routine post. Since not everybody reads the comments section and I thought some people might find this helpful I decided to re-post it separately and expand on some of the points.
Mike Mentzer dipping
Parallel bar dips are like squats; people rarely do them correctly, either moving wrong, not going low enough, or going too low and bouncing at the bottom. Parallel bar dips should be performed with a parallel grip with palms facing inwards – while this might seem obvious there are still people following Vince Gironda’s recommendation to do them with palms facing out and the arms internally rotated in a way that puts a lot of stress on the shoulder joint.
When placing the hands on the bars the heels of the palms should be directly on top of the bars – not the center of the palm – so the wrists are directly over the bars and the bars, wrists and elbows line up in the same plane. The arms should be angled out slightly, around 45 degrees at most and not straight out to the sides.
Lean forward throughout the exercise; this increases the range of motion around both the elbows and shoulders and works the chest through a stronger part of it’s range of motion. The more upright the torso, the shorter the range of motion and the easier the exercise is due to better leverage which is the opposite of what you want, which is harder exercise.
Start in the top position. If the dip station you’re using doesn’t have steps get a stable bench or step stool to stand on – this ensures you are able to catch or spot yourself with your legs at any position over your range of motion if necessary.
Lower yourself slowly, keep the chest, shoulders and triceps tight, and turn around when you start to feel a stretch in your chest – do not try for a deep stretch. You should feel a stretch, but not a deep stretch, and any stretch should be felt in the muscles and not the shoulder joints. If you are feeling even a slight stretch in the muscles you are getting as much range of motion as you need or will benefit from – go further and you risk irritating or injuring the shoulders.
Start gradually, drive up in a controlled manner, and focus on contracting the chest, shoulders and triceps. Slow down as you approach lock out then immediately but slowly change direction while staying tight.
If you are strong enough to perform dips with more than your body weight I recommend getting a dipping belt. It is possible to hold a dumbbell between the feet but can be awkward with larger dumbbells and requires the parallel bars be low enough that you can reach the dumbbell with your feet after your hands are in position. Otherwise you will need someone to hand you the dumbbell once you are in position on the bars.
If the chain on the belt does not hang to at least slightly below your knees go to your local home improvement store and have them cut you one that will. If not, you’re going to be very uncomfortable if you try to put the belt on with one or more 45 pound plates on the chain.
A weighted vest is another option, however dipping belts tend to be far more reasonably priced and will hold much more weight.
One of the best options for weighted parallel bar dips, if you’re lucky enough to train in a gym that has one, is the Nautilus Omni Multi Exercise (OME) machine. Instead of weight plates the belt attaches to a lever which drives the weight stack via a negative cam and sprocket which increases the resistance from the bottom to the top of the movement. The OME also has built in steps and the height of the dipping and chinning bars is adjustable.
An even better option, if you have one, is the UXS-15 bodyweight station which has thick, angled dipping bars which provide better wrist position and a more comfortable grip at a height for easy entry and exit.
When performed correctly the parallel bar dip is one of the best exercises for chest, anterior delts and triceps. However, when performed incorrectly they can mess up your shoulders or elbows so be conservative with the resistance when starting out and focus on maintaining proper form.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Don’t dips make the chest more of a secondary mover (and more on Tricept) as opposed to primary thus making it not as effective for developing the chest as say Bench or Pec Dec?
Alex,
If done in the manner I describe the chest is worked very hard by these. Done in a negative-only fashion they will leave your chest, delts and triceps sore for days.
How does age affect strentgh and bodybuilding? At what age do men start to decline in strentgh?
Jay,
It varies between individuals, some start declining earlier, some later. Strength and muscular size do become harder to improve as we get older but it can still be done with proper training. I’ve had 85 year old men make significant improvements in strength, so I don’t believe it’s too late for anyone as long as they are able to move.
Very informative read as usual Drew. What a great exercise for the upper body. I have a question for Drew or any HIT trainer/enthusiast.
I’ve always found my triceps are the limiting factor whenever I perform a pushing or pressing movement,such as the parallel bar dips, where they often fatigue way before my chest or shoulder musculature reach failure. Logically, I’ve thought about using the pre-exhaust principle (as advocated a lot by the legend Mike Mentzer) to solve this problem, however this inevitably lead to a reduction in the amount of weight I could use in the compound movement of the pre-exhaust set, which I don’t think is desirable (although I appreciate pre-exhaust may be effective for some individuals). I remember an interview you were involved in Drew, where you highlighted that you always struggled getting your arms to grow in comparison to your chest, back and legs, which grew far more easily. I seem to have a similar problem, not only in my lack of arm size but in my arms ability to tolerate loads in compound exercise. Any suggestions?
Can’t wait for the book, Callum.
Callum,
While it varies between individuals, in general I don’t think the arms are as much of a limiting factor in compound movements as some people believe. The two things that made the biggest difference in my arm size were doing hyper and double-negative on the CZT machine, and alternating the following routine with my regular workouts:
1. Negative-Only Chin-Ups
2. Arm Curls
3. Negative-Only Dips
4. Triceps Extensions
5. Leg Press
Rush between the first and second and between the third and fourth exercises. The burn on the curls and extensions after the negative-only chin-ups and dips can be pretty severe, but thinking the more you can endure and the farther you can push yourself the bigger your arms will get can help you work through it.
Hey Drew,
Any chance of posting some instructional vids in the future
to demonstrate proper technique?
A vid can be worth a thousand words.
I plan to do instructional videos but have no idea when they will be posted on the site. Eventually I will be doing a full DVD course but won’t be starting that until May at the earliest.
Doesn’t the bench press work the same muscles that “Dips” work? If you ignore dips and just keep progressively overloading on the bench press, eventually you will get a well developed chest, ant.delts and triceps…..so what is the difference?
Mark,
Due to the shoulder girdle having significantly more freedom of movement during dips some of the muscles involved in shoulder depression and protraction are involved to a greater degree. Additionally, the parallel bar dip has the advantages of not placing you underneath a bar and the ability of the trainee to self-spot/assist with the legs.
Drew,
I’m considering dropping horizontal pressing from my routine and focusing on overhead pressing and weighted dips. The usual suspects will criticize that my “upper chest” is not being exercized sufficiently and will lack complete development without an incline or horizontal press of some kind. I’m curious to your thoughts regarding dips and the upper pectorals, as I believe your own routine often does not include a horizontal press.
Todd,
My upper-chest development hasn’t suffered from doing dips instead of chest press. If you use enough of a forward lean during dips the whole chest is involved to a significant degree, including the upper chest. If after a month or two you feel your upper chest is lagging behind you can always alternate inclines for dips every couple workouts.
Hi Drew,
I have these 3 questions for you
(1) PUSH-UPS and DIPS (done the-HIT-way, weighted if necessary)
is it redundant to do push-ups and dips on the same work-out?
(2) if PUSH-UPS and DIPS are NOT redundant, which PUSH-UP modality (incline vs decline; narrow vs shoulder-width vs wide..) would best complement the DIPS?
(3) if PUSH-UPS and DIPS are NOT redundant, should these exercises be performed one after the other, or with a different-muscle-group exercise in between?
THANKS!
JLMA
JLMA,
There is a lot of overlap between push ups and dips but there are instances where one might perform them in a workout. For example, as part of an arm specialization routine you might perform a set of parallel bar dips immediately followed by push ups with the hands positioned close together (AKA “diamond push ups”) to work the triceps.
OK, thanks. Two more related questions:
(1) If you were to do PUSH-UPS as your ONLY upper-body PUSH-exercise, which modality would you choose as far as:
(a) Distance from hand to hand (Wide, Shoulder-width, Narrow)?
(b) Inclination (feet on floor or elevated)?
(2) Push-Up Handles: I need to use them so that my wrists don’t hurt. Do you favor ROTATING or STILL handles?
THANKS!
JLMA,
As a general rule, shoulder width and always non-rotating handles. There are exceptions and I will be discussing these in materials I have planned on bodyweight training later in the year.
With regard to upper pec involvement in a dip v’s horizontal press/bench press. Poliquin(not a fan), posted an article about nerve conduction tests on the 3 basic movements. Incline press stimulated the upper pec more than a flat or decline press as expected, but oddly enough flat bench or horizontal press directed just as much stimulation to the lower pec as a decline did.
Glenn,
Standing presses also significantly involve the upper chest, making them a good alternate pressing exercise if your main chest movement is dips or decline presses, although I would recommend flat bench presses over declines.
My current A/B routine contains all three:
Workout A:
Squat
Weighted Chin Up
Standing Press
Arm Curl
Weighed Dip
Stiff-Legged Deadlift
Gripping
Workout B:
Shrug Bar Deadlift
Bench Press
Bent-Over Row
Dumbbell Side Raise
Barbell Pullover
Standing Calf Raise
Wrist Curl
Wrist Extension
What is a difference between performing dips on a V-bar or on parallel bars? Is one better than other?
Tauno,
Other than hand and wrist position there isn’t much difference, but dipping bars that angle out slightly have the advantage of providing narrower and wider grip spacing for smaller or larger framed trainees.
How does one know if the distance between handles in a given parallel dip station is the right width (or too wide) for the trainee?
The handles in my Power Tower are parallel and 24 inches apart.
I am 14 inches from side to side (not including arms, of course; only my torso) at the level of the hips.
Is 24 inches between handles an acceptable distance in my case?
Thanks.
JLMA,
Ideally, the handles should be just outside of shoulder width, so the arms are angled out slightly.
I’ve been doing dips for years and it’s probably my favorite upper body exercise but lately I’ve been getting a shooting pain on the outer part of my left hand and goes down through my pinky. Do you know what the cause possibly could be and what I can do about it? I don’t want to have to give up dips.
Thanks,
Max
Max,
Pressure on the nerve could do that. If you have access to thicker dipping bars or handles, preferably around a two inch diameter, this will spread the force more evenly over the hands and eliminate or reduce the pain. Although it varies between individuals, pain in the hands during dipping is also common if someone works up to using a very heavy weight in addition to their body weight.
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Chest dips make my pecs lose that tight hard pumped feeling that I get from bench press incline press and flyes. They seem to go soft, deflated and spongy after doing them. Dips sometimes worked supersetted with flyes but not always. I’ve stopped them
Darren,
If this is a problem you’re not using enough of a forward lean.
Hi Drew,
What are your thoughts on using tuck-planche pushups or a modified tuck-planche pushup as a dip replacement (if you don’t have a dip station)? I have some angled pushup bars that I work on this, I figure if I ever get strong enough to get past tuck planche pushups HIT-style (I do about 3-4 reps right now, 5-5-1 cadence) I can always push a leg (or both) further back to increase the leverage, so no need for additional weights. I don’t get a huge range of motion on these right now but if i got stronger I guess I would get more range by lifting my legs higher. The tuck planche pushup (with parallel grip) seems very similar to the way you describe dipping – tilting forward to engage the upper chest – maybe without quite as much range of motion. Maybe that’s better for me so I don’t tear my shoulders apart 🙂
Hey Matt,
The tuck planche push up is a good substitute for parallel bar dips for someone who is strong enough to perform them correctly. Tucking and leaning forward during dips reduces the degree of shoulder extension at the start point making the exercise easier on the shoulder joints.
Drew, when you said “start point” here, were you referring to the “bottom position”?
Thanks.
Start point and end point are always relative to the positive movement.
Thank you for this clarification.
The reason I asked is that the 1st sentence in the 5th paragraph says “Start in the top position”, and that threw me off when reading your reply above about “start point” and “shoulder joints”.