Dips are good as an exercise to develop your chest muscles but only if you do them right. But it’s not so obvious and for a lot of guys and girls it’s not the easiest thing to do to perform the movements correctly. So what are those mistakes that we do and how to take advantage of dips correctly?
You probably already know that to target the chest with dips you have to lean a little bit forward. Think of it as almost doing a push up suspended in the air. That’s a common technique and you probably already do it right. But what you may not know and not doing right are the following 2 things, simply because these adjustments are rather difficult to keep up.
You probably already know that to target the chest with dips you have to lean a little bit forward. Think of it as almost doing a push up suspended in the air. That’s a common technique and you probably already do it right. But what you may not know and not doing right are the following 2 things, simply because these adjustments are rather difficult to keep up.
Of course, as I always advocate, you should make the exercise as difficult as you can for yourself for it to have the maximum effect on your muscle development. So here we go.
Keep the Shoulders Down
As you do a dip and you lower yourself down, it’s easy to let your body weight sink you down by shrugging and moving your shoulders up. That’s a natural reaction of your body because it makes it easier for you to hold your own weight. Unfortunately that puts your chest muscles at a disadvantage and it takes the necessary load off them.
What you need to do is to always keep your shoulders down as you move up and down doing a dip. It’s not easy to do, but it’s not supposed to be easy and the harder it is for your chest the better.
Keep Your Shoulders Back
Remember how you do your chest press. You keep your shoulders down and back by squeezing your traps together. This is exactly what you should be doing with dips as well. It’s not easy, and it puts the maximum load on your chest which is exactly what we want.
Not only that, it takes off the unnecessary load off your shoulder joints which otherwise can lead to injuries.
The Correct Effective Dips for the Chest
So every time you do dips, keep these 3 things in mind:
- Keep your shoulders down
- Keep your shoulders back by squeezing traps
- Lean forward
Do them in controlled movements and tempo, don’t flail around. I would suggest a 32X0 tempo (3 second descent, 2 second pause at the bottom, ascend as fast as you can and don’t pause at the top). This will further improve the quality of the dip and while you will be able to do much less reps, you will get the maximum benefit for your chest.
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