Incline dips for fabulous pecs

Don’t let this classic exercise ruin your shoulders while you continue building your pecs with this simple adjustment.

You don’t need to completely change the V-bar dips you usually do to stimulate your pecs; you just need to make a small change.

The goal is for you to feel better while working your pecs and protecting your shoulders.

This is a go-to exercise for developing your triceps and chest, but unless your shoulders and elbows are healthy, things can get a little risky … so you’ll need to modify your form when doing dips.

Pecs: why do dips?

One or two immediate benefits of dips over the bench press are that, because they are a bodyweight exercise, they require you to stabilize your entire body as you move, and they are also a much more functional movement.

There’s no doubt that the bench press definitely develops the larger chest muscles, but that opens up a controversy that would be answered with “it depends,” depending on who performs it.

The bench press is the ultimate equalizer, because whoever lifts heavy weights on the bench will be huge, monstrous, and the strongest—but is it the best movement for the pecs?

The biggest problem with the bench press is that the front deltoids receive the same stimulation as the pectoralis major during the movement.

• This means that your relatively small front deltoids will fail much sooner than your much larger pectoralis major, inhibiting your ability to train your pecs to the fullest.
• This leads directly to the second strike against the bench press: it is one of the main causes of shoulder injuries. Specifically, rotator cuff injuries can result from the flat bench press.

The bench press contributes to shoulder inflexibility, which can cause even more injuries, and this has nothing to do with having larger muscles.

Dips and the shoulders

In the case of dips, because of the downward movement, the shoulders are not as involved, and the pecs are isolated in a way that no other compound exercise can offer.

The decline bench press involves less deltoid engagement than the flat bench press, and this is magnified when the movement becomes straight up and down, as in dips, which are actually a bodyweight version of the decline bench press.

Another consideration is that dips for the pecs will develop both thickness and width, whereas the bench press will develop only thickness, so you also need flyes to increase width.

• With your elbows held against your body during a set of dips, thickness will be emphasized.
• By extending your elbows out to the sides, the outer part of your pecs will be targeted.

The point is that, when doing regular dips for your pecs, you place your arms behind your body in glenohumeral extension (at the shoulder).

At that point, in that position, you begin controlling your body with your shoulders. That’s fine; don’t worry—your shoulders are designed for it. However, other muscle groups are not.

This begins to place excessive force through the anterior ligaments of the shoulders and can pinch the rotator cuff and the long head of the biceps tendon.

Dips for the pecs

Instead of doing it this way, lean forward and lead the movement with your pecs, not your shoulders. You may also need to bring your legs farther back, but this isn’t essential as long as you can lean your torso forward, so that you are less upright while performing the exercise.

This results in slightly less glenohumeral extension and better activation of the pecs, providing extra support for your shoulders.

In addition, you should experiment with the grip width you are using to better align your elbows and shoulders.

In this exercise, the best approach is trial and error to find a technique that is both comfortable and effective for your pecs…

How to do it:

• Jump up onto a V-bar and start from the top.
• Extend your neck and lean your shoulders forward, so that your torso forms a slight forward angle instead of being vertical.
• Keep your feet and legs behind you.

Now perform the movement with your chest and lower only as far as feels comfortable, staying away from any range or movement that causes pain.

If you still feel pain, stop doing dips and try a close-grip floor press or a decline press to stay comfortable.

This type of exercise may give you the same stimulation for your pecs.