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I consider dips one of the top 4 mass builders because anyone can work their way up to using their body weight plus additional weights strapped onto a weight belt to pack on more chest, triceps, and shoulder mass. Dips are the equivalent of the upper body squat as it requires you to lift your entire body weight by pressing up without any cheating leverage.
It is a vertical pushing exercise that allows the body to move through space without any back or standing support (unlike the bench press) so you can recruit more muscle fibers to for strength and muscle mass gains. The dip is one of the most effective and convenient body weight exercise for bodyweight conditioning and training.
Instructions to perform parallel bar dips:
1) Grab the parallel bar with arms locked and extended in the starting position.
2) You may flex the knees and keep head slightly looking down.
3) Tuck your chin inwards to your neck.
4) The upper body should be erect.
5) Slowly bend the arms with elbows pointing slowly outward away from the body. As you go down, lean the torso slightly forward to put more emphasis on the chest muscles. Keep torso erect if you want to focus more on the triceps.
6) Lower your body to a point where a comfortable stretch is achieved. The upper arms should be parallel or near parallel to the floor. This is the eccentric phase and should last 2-3 seconds.
7) Push the body up and straighten out till arms are locked again. This is the positive contraction phase and should last 1-2 seconds. This is one rep.
8 ) Repeat until desired reps are completed.
Throughout the movement, make sure you’re using a controlled tempo to avoid any major swinging or momentum. Excessive swinging takes the work out of the chest and triceps resulting in less desirable results.
You may strap on a weight belt and add additional weight plates to make the movement harder and more progressive. Progressive overload is the name of the game here. If you can do more than 12 reps with body weight, it’s time to increase the load of the movement by adding weight.
Variations include:
- weighted dips with weight/hip belt or weight vest; you can alternatively wear a loaded backpack or curl a dumbbell between your feet, alternatively you can also use a chain or 2″ manilla rope to strap the additional weight plates, make sure all weights attached to your body are secure or you risk injury from unsecured weights crashing onto your feet…
- v-bar dips; dips can be done on a v-bar station instead of a parallel bar station
- triceps dips (body/torso stays erect on the eccentric and concentric phase)
- assisted dips on dip machine; a dip/chinup assistance machine will help you adapt to the movement if you cannot complete a full rep with your body weight, over time you’ll be able to use body weight plus additional loading
- ring dips on rings(ringtraining.com); gymnastics rings offers a new challenge while minimizing cheating and swinging
- bench dips; face away from the bench and do dips with feet support
- chinups+ dips + muscle-up; combine all three movements into one fluid motion
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