How To Do Deep Dips Pain-Free!

You could consider the dip to be like the squat of the upper body. When we talk about squats, we do talk about getting all the way down into that full-depth position. We know that there are a lot of benefits that come from that full depth. We want the same thing for the shoulders, for the triceps, for the elbows. We want that full-depth position but just because we want it doesn't mean we can have it. We don't want to get there at the cost of joint pain. Just being able to lift yourself in terms of strength doesn't mean that you should be doing the fullest depth dips. When you're doing this movement, you don't want to go over a one or a two-out-of-five kind of pain or tendon tension. If you have more on one side than the other side, then you should also be more concerned about that, and pay more attention. Go to the range that you're comfortable with often. It's just a case of lowering the load. If you can decrease the weight by putting your feet on the floor then you might find that you're able to get to this real deep position. Once you're comfortable with this bottom position, you can play with staying in that bottom position, getting very strong down here, and then progressing on from that. We can shift to one side. We get into unilateral movement all the way over and you find you're taking most of the weight now on the side, that you're shifting towards, you see you get extra depth there, relative to the middle. This is something that can be trained progressively. What you will get is more adaptation in the connective tissue. You're going to be less likely to have a tendon issue or a strain in the muscle. You're going to get new tendons laid down as they get stronger. Also, the triceps are getting trained in a more stretched position. The more stretched positions because the connective tissue is pulling hard already, as well as the muscular tension, you have a bit more of a tug of war effect and therefore it's going to be more anabolic. You're going to have more inflammation and more new tissue growth. That doesn't mean that shorter range positions are not useful. Being able to work with a shortened pec is also still valuable, it just has a different purpose to that fully stretched position. This is your long-range, athletic range movement for the peck and it's really going to play a big part in keeping healthy shoulders and even in terms of your top speed. Ben talks about it a lot, Usain Bolt was able to get the shoulder extension. You will see some people when they sprint, who can't get their arms back and it's going to negatively impact, top-speed running as well. This is not just a superficial or a bodybuilding thing. This is something that we all need to look at.