[Music]

okay welcome everyone to a new episode

of technique Tuesday this week we're

gonna be looking at how to perform the

dip with perfect technique but before we

jump into the technique itself let's

have a quick look at what muscles we're

going to be targeting first so with the

dip we're training both the upper and

lower pecs through shoulder adduction

basically bringing the arm across the

body closer to the midline like in a

benchpress

the anterior deltoids and clavicular or

upper head of the pecs are gonna be

performing shoulder flexion so basically

bringing your arm forward like in a

front raise and of course the triceps

will be involved through elbow extension

where the arm straightens out on 2010

dr. Brett Contreras ran a solo EMG

experiment and found that the way to dip

activated the lower pecs the most

however just noticed that the weighted

dip still saw a higher peak EMG

activation for the upper chest and even

the incline bench press with 225 pounds

so just because the lower chest was the

most active doesn't imply that that dips

are only a lower chest exercise they

will in fact hit the entire PEC muscle

to a very significant degree making it a

great overall mass and strength builder

now similar to the pull-up and many

people think of the dip as a bodyweight

only movement often being used as a sort

of finisher exercise for high reps and

it can be used for this purpose however

since it trains multiple joints in a

strong position I think it's actually

smarter in most cases to load the dip in

a more moderate to heavy rep zone

something around six to twelve reps

although if you are using them as a high

rep finisher you certainly can go as

high as thirty reps or more with

bodyweight

now despite the dip being a heavy

compound movement it is in fact much

less technical than the bench press or

overhead press so it's much more

acceptable to push sets much closer to

failure allowing the muscles to

experience fatigue under heavy load

something they may not be getting from

the basic presses and with that said if

you are new to the dip I think you

should start out with relatively low

exertions and then as you master

technique and gradually work your way up

to higher effort sets since even small

deviations in for

can we - pain under heavy load for the

sake of this video we're going to be

assuming that to be close to failure in

the 6 to 12 rep zone you're going to

need to be adding external resistance to

the movement and you can do this by

using a loading belt or by having a

training partner place a dumbbell

between your legs however if you're

reaching or nearing failure with

bodyweight only in that rep range and

it's much more important to master form

first and once you hit 12 reps with

bodyweight then you can gradually

increase the weight from there and of

course there's no shame at all in using

the assistance from the machine which

will most likely be required for

beginners and overweight individuals in

order to maintain proper form but

regardless of your specific loading

strategy the execution will be more or

less the same so you want to find a dip

rack or any pair of parallel bars and

take a grip just outside at

shoulder-width prop yourself up so you

can grip the handles with your elbows

and shoulders fully extended and place

your weight onto the handles by curling

your legs in behind you just gonna

prevent your feet from hitting the

ground on each rep before beginning the

lowering phase you want to make sure

your shoulder blades are slightly

retracted and depressed to make sure

everything is a nice and stable around

the shoulder joint and you want to lean

your torso slightly forward I'm just

gonna shift a bit of that emphasis onto

the chest you don't want to exaggerate

this forward lean to the point that it

starts to look like a sort of floating

pushup now but you also don't want to do

the dip completely upright which can

lead to shoulder pain and take the pecs

more out of the movement so slowly lower

your torso down under control for about

a two-second lowering phase and a smooth

controlled negative is extremely

important on the dip so you don't

accidentally extend the range of motion

past your shoulders natural capabilities

and on the negative you want to keep

your knees pinched together and keep

your hips extended to prevent tipping

which is a form of cheating where your

knees come forward creating momentum and

changing your center of balance you also

want to keep your scapula retracted and

keep your thoracic spine extended by not

allowing your upper back to round as you

descent go down until your upper arm and

forearm make a better 90 degree angle or

to the point where you feel a strong

stretch in your PEC

and triceps for some people that'll be

slightly below 90 degrees I think most

people with healthy shoulders should aim

to get to the point where their upper

arm is parallel to the floor without

pausing at the bottom we're gonna

reverse the motion by driving your hands

and down into the handles while keeping

our torso in the same position and at

the top of the range you should make

sure your shoulder blades are still

retracted and your upper back is still

extended now I would say the most common

error on the dip is anterior scapular

tilting and in my opinion this is why

many people can run into shoulder

problems with the dip and why it's

become a bit of a controversial exercise

most people know to keep the scapula

retracted and depressed on the bench

press because it puts the shoulder in a

safer position but not as many people

carry the same advice to the dip despite

it being very biomechanically a similar

so before dipping you want to pull your

shoulder blades together and tuck them

down but you can think about is just

keeping your upper back straight and try

not to go too deep and make sure you

reverse the motion before you start to

lose that stable shoulder position

another very common error is trying to

stay too upright people will often just

assume that a more upright posture is

gonna hit the triceps more but in

reality the pecs delts and triceps are

all going to be very highly active when

the dip is performed with a natural

forward inclination and I'm not a big

fan personally of trying to manipulate

the movement with different grip withes

or different postures to try to target

different muscles that much rather see

you find a good comfortable lifting

groove that feels natural for your

particular anthropometry and then stick

with that and get better at it but with

that said trying to stay too upright can

certainly lead to excessive stress on

the shoulder joint while at the same

time taking some of the pecs

contributing power out of the movement

I'm not a big fan of the bench dips it

has an alternative here where your torso

is out in front of your shoulder since

you're so much more likely to see

anterior scapular tilting early in the

range of motion so if you're not able to

do the free weight dip we can use the

assisted dip machine or a way to dip

machine if your gym has one although I

don't think these machines can truly

replace the strength and overall mass

building potential of a properly

performed free weight dip and we did

push-ups are another pretty good

replacement but you might not be able to

get that scene

agree of stretch on the pecs and it can

be difficult to load past a certain

strength threshold so guys that's all

that I have for the dip if you guys are

interested in putting all of this

information into a full training routine

that you can follow and you can check

out all my training programs including

my chest and benchpress specialization

programs on my website both of which

include a dip in the routine and I'll

have both of those linked down below

thanks again so much for watching guys I

don't forget to leave me a like if you

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and I'll see you guys all here next

Tuesday