Dip Variations for Chest and Triceps (Beginner to Advanced)

In this video, we are going to be showing you how to do dips and also what to do if you're unable to do dips. But we're going to be covering what the perfect range is, along with what the perfect dip is and all of its variations. So we've got Jason here. Jason is going to show us, first of all, a standard dip, and he's going to do a couple of reps. We'll show you what a standard dip looks like, and then we'll go from there and show you some of the variations. So that's really nice what Jason is doing. People ask, how low should you be going? So I've got this pen here, I'm going to put in his elbow, right? And what you're going to see is if you can hold it, that's, that's where you want to go. Now you don't need to exacerbate the range and go to full, full end range and really like flex it, but you do want to go low enough where you're able to hold a pen in your elbow. Now another thing, Jason, just reset that for a second, right? So just, and back up. Yep. Now just, just take a break for a sec. Take a break. What I'm going to get you to do is one of the other questions is about serratus anterior and its involvement in a dip. And serratus anterior, the muscle, if Jason turns around this way, it starts through here and inserts into our scap. So often a winged scap can be because of a weak serratus anterior. So here's a little hack that you can do on a dip. If Jason jumps up right at the end of your dip, what you want to be doing is really getting into that protracted position. So more, more, more, more, really getting to protract. So that serratus anterior really working. Now go through your dip as you would, right? And then at the end point and back up, get— pull, pull, pull, protract, protract. And again, to really get that serratus anterior working, and pull, pull, pull, pull, and really pull everything away as you do it, right? So this is a way again to maximize our dip. Now, next question we get— Jason, you can relax for a sec— is, am I doing dips more for my chest, or am I doing dips for the tricep? Now, Traditionally, if your arms are closer— Jason, just do this a little bit closer— you are going to be using more triceps. The problem with this line of thought is if you are a little wider in the shoulders or a bit bulkier in the shoulders, it can create a lot of torsion into that shoulder as well, which is going to limit range. So Jason, just do a couple reps if you haven't got the range of motion. Now Jason's got fantastic range of motion, so he's able to go quite low, but even if you are going to go closer, about there, A little higher, a little higher. So come down, and if we just go parallel, right, and back up and back up, we're going to feel that definitely more so in the triceps. So you're going to be using both, but traditionally, you know, the wider out you go, you are going to use a little bit more pec. And especially if you want to really get that pec involved, go into that protracted. Now I did say, what do we do if we cannot do a dip? And we might not be able to do it. Maybe, maybe you have the strength to do a dip, but maybe we're getting shoulder pain at the front of our shoulder, which is an indicator of that bicep, uh, tendon that's running through. So what we can do is we can start with push-ups. So we've set up push-ups here, a few variations. We'll do the first variation, which is just a standard push-up. So this, this can be the starting point of our dip. Now again, you might not be able to do a full push-up. You could do push-ups on your knees. So as we do this push-up, we're going to do the variation that's going to start to build our strength. So we're going to push away and get that serratus anterior involved, right? And go through again. And pull, pull everything away. Get that serratus anterior involved, then go through. So this is where I would start. And again, if you are getting shoulder pain, it could be also because that serratus anterior piece is a little weak and you need to also then work on thoracic extension, depression of the lat, and external rotation. Those 3 things solve most shoulder issues. Just do 1 more. Now, if we want to progress this, we've got the— we can elevate. So Jason, jump onto this elevation here. We're going to put our hands there, which what that's going to do is allow us an extended range of motion. So as we go through down, Jason's able to go a little bit deeper. This can start to prepare us for a dip. So all the way through, really get that end position. And again, one more. This is starting to prepare us for the dip. Now, that might also be too, too easy, and we're not still not ready for the dip. So Jason, just relax for a sec. I'm going to get your feet up on here so we can progress it this way as well. We'll move this forward for him. Now he's going to do his push-ups here. So if you can do a push-up like this, you're probably ready to do a dip. And again, see how that extended range of motion— now we're going through much range of motion. We've elevated his heels so there's more weight at that endpoint as well. And he's also got that serratus anterior piece where he's working, just pushing and making sure he's getting that serratus anterior piece in. And don't bow through the lower back when you do this. You did a little bit of bowing. Keep those abs, belly button in towards your spine. Do it. Keep those abs always solid on all the way through. Belly button in towards your spine. That was beautiful. And do one more, but I want you to pause at the bottom. So this is a really good prep for that dip. Pause and back up. Beautiful. All right, relax. That's really nicely demonstrated. So you go from push-ups on knees, push-ups, push-ups with an extended range of motion, push-ups where you're elevated, making sure you're getting that serratus anterior piece where you're going through full protraction as well. And then we're at the dips. So if you're at Jason's level, we're going to look at weighted dips because Jason needs a little bit of weight to really maximize his dip. So if you are needing to weight dips, you've got a bar, you've got a belt rather. I like to use kettlebells. The reason I like to use kettlebells as the weight on either a chin-up or a dip is because it's a standard implement, right? So if I'm using plates, plates, if I'm, if I'm say I'm going to 20 kilos or 30 kilos or 40 kilos, I'm adding more plates, which creates a different movement. I want the movement to feel the same, but the only thing that that changes is the actual weight, if that makes sense. And a kettlebell allows you to do that, is it's always the same size, unless you need to use two kettlebells, of course, then it can be different dynamic. But for most folks, they won't run into that issue, but this makes it much, much easier. All right, Jason, so hop up on here and let's do it with the serratus anterior. Really like push away, go that full, full range. Up we go. Let's just do 3 reps to show the folks. Nice position. And all the way through, all the way through. Good. 1, excellent. And at that top, really push away, really push away so I can't grab your scap at all. Excellent. And just 1 more and really push away, really push away, really push away, really push away. That's it. Excellent, excellent. Cool. And relax. All right, he's got a bit of a pump on. So I hope you have enjoyed these variations of dips and how to dip and everything between. If you have any questions about your dips, leave a comment below. 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