dips

[Arthur]

I get the horizontal and vertical pushing and pulling classification, but I've always kind of wondered where dips went.

Stronglifts 5x5--if I understood right--considers dips to be a step up from pushups, basically a horizontal push where your feet aren't anchored. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[Admin]

Dips are fantastic, similar to push ups in that you are pushing but it is your entire bodyweight and on a different plane.

Performing dips on rings is an amazing exercise.

Be careful to keep your elbows in and watch the range of motion at first to avoid injury to rotator cuff and labrum.

[Arthur]

Rings are actually the only thing I have that I can do dips on, except for chairs, and I've never been comfortable with those. I've been working on my support, and doing my Day 2 pushups on the rings, and I've got to where I can do two dips pretty reliably, and three if the weather is really nice.

I know that, by raising your feet, you can make pushups harder, and you'll eventually wind up doing them from a handstand. Do dips contribute to this continuum at all, or are they just different? Dips and HSPUs are both used in the advanced workouts, if I remember right.

I want the dip because in the sunny daydream future I'll be practicing muscle-ups, and I hear I need equal parts pullup and dip to do it (and in the fifteen or so range for each, too). So I was thinking, if it ever becomes possible, of plugging dips into the "push" part of the Simplefit formula.

But I also want a real handstand in the sunny daydream future. Sigh. What's an ignorant person to do?

[Admin]

start doing all push ups with your elbows against your body and the transition to dips will be easy.

[splint]

I'm excited to try muscle-ups again one of these days. I haven't tried one since November, I've got homemade rings but the basement isn't tall enough to do muscle-ups. I need to take them to the park.

I'm excited because I noticed today that I was really banging my chest off the pull-up bar on a few reps and was hoping that would translate into the energy I need for the muscle-up transition.

Incidentally, in November I could do a jumping muscle-up on the lower rings but not the higher ones where my arms were completely straight.

Plus, today's Crossfit WOD was 30 muscle-ups for time but the substitution was 120 pull-ups/120 dips. That sucked. It makes 30 muscle-ups sound pleasant.

[Arthur]

Speaking of banging chests off the bar, I'm still missing the top of the ROM on pullups. I can clear my chin unassisted (Level 2), but I'm sure not pulling the bar to my chest. I might be getting the bar closer to my collarbone than I used to, but I might be making that up.

Is that ROM something that will come along in the normal course of things?