Overview: Dips provide an excellent upper body workout, and you should make them a staple of your training program. To reduce this stress, keep your elbows close to single bar russian dips sides.
Ideally, dip bars should be spaced at a distance equivalent to your forearm with hand outstretched, from elbow to fingertips. Wider bars will also emphasize the chest. If you feel shoulder pain, do not lower yourself further than parallel. Your head should be in line with your upper body, looking forward, not up, and your core engaged.
Notes: A dip station makes an important addition to your home set up, but here are a couple of alternatives to dip bars, once you reach the later stages of the progression. Once you want to attempt Russian dips, you will need parallel bars. Choose one of the following variations as a starting point and perform 3 sets of between 4 and 8 repetitions with periods of between 1 and 2 min of rest between each set. When you can do 3 sets of 8, move on to the next exercise in the progression. Place your hands flat on a bench or chair behind you, and lower yourself until your butt nearly touches the floor. Lower yourself over the count of 3 seconds. Breathe out as you push yourself back up.
Same as above but performed with straight legs. One elevated leg, straight legs bench dips. Raise one of your legs off the floor. One extended leg, elevated legs bench dips.
Perform these in between on dip bars. Allow your feet to rest on the floor behind you, and try to use minimal assistance from your legs when pushing yourself back up. Same exercise, but performed between two chairs. This, again, is the same exercise as above but performed on a dips station by using a bench behind me for assistance. Same as above, but reducing the assistance from your legs by using only one leg. Jump into the dip position, then lower yourself over 5 seconds.
When you reach the bottom position, place your feet on the floor and jump back up. You are merely concerned with the eccentric phase of the movement. From the top position, lower yourself till your upper arms are parallel with the floor, then push yourself back up. Lower yourself between two chairs or parallel bars through the whole range of movement, feet off the floor, then push back to the starting position. This movement slightly changes the mechanics of the exercise, but it is a key step in the progression towards a muscle up: once in the top dip position, raise you knees so that your legs would be in front of you, rather than behind you throughout the dipping motion. Having lowered yourself in the ‘legs forward dip’ position, carry on getting lower until your forarms are parallel with the floor.
This might place a bit of strain on your wrists, but it closely mimicks the middle portion of a muscle up. It also forces you to dip lower than you might have done until now. Here’s a video demonstration of modified Russian dips on parallel bars. These will require a set or parallel bars.
