6 Great Dip Station Exercises For Your Upper Body

6 Great Dip Station Exercises

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Dip station is by far one of the greatest gym equipment out there for its combination of different muscle groups and exercises. It’s ideal for home and garage gyms and it’s cheap compared to other gym equipment, even though you can buy portable dip stations if you want to they’re out there, and actually, you can train all of your upper body muscles with dip stations.

Down below are 6 great dip station exercises for all of your upper body muscles including back and abs. But be careful. Despite that dip stations are a great way to train your muscles, there are multiple ways of doing it wrong, especially when doing chest or triceps dips it could hurt your shoulder joints, even cause serious injuries.

If you’re building your home or garage gym you may want to go for the compound equipment, the pieces that train more than one muscle in a couple of movements. Knowing the exercises you can perform, dip stations will help you decide whether you need it or not.

1. Chest dip “Lower chest attack”

When performing chest dips your lower pecs are the most activated part of your chest muscles. To perform this exercise right you need to lean forward so that your chest is facing the floor, also you need to layer those elbows out to avoid injuries and lastly focus on stretching those chest fibers so you get the best results out of this exercise, when bringing yourself up focus on that chest tension.

2.Triceps DIP

This is a great exercise for your triceps. It targets all of the 3 heads, making it a great alternative for many exercises but only when performed right. Keep in mind when doing triceps dips, it’s important to focus on pushing your torso back up using your triceps to bring your body back to the starting position.

*Note: When performing bench dips for your triceps where there’s no available dip station, try to avoid making your shoulders internally rotated, make sure they’re externally rotated like this:

Speaking of internal and external rotation of your shoulders, here’s a study that will help you understand rotator cuffs Mechanics and why it’s important for your shoulder health.

3. Pull-ups / Chin-ups

With dip station, you can easily do pull ups and the easy form of them chin-ups to work your lats and improve your strength. If you are new at this exercise and don’t have the strength to perform it, use a chin assist machine, if available.

These machines use weight to help you push your body weight and if you want to do more pull-ups then do pull-ups more often. Doing them once a week when training your back won’t pay off, and if you are really serious about it, you can follow Charles Lewis Armstrong program for doing more pull-ups.

4. Hanging leg raise / Hanging knee raises

One of the best dip station exercise for abs, a great way to work out your abdominals. When performing this exercise you need to do it slowly and deliberately. If you are a beginner you can bend your knees to allow yourself to do the exercise easily, as you get more advanced you can add some weights but be careful – don’t add too much weights or you could get a hernia(!).

For adding a little bit of variation simply get a partner for Manual Resistance. Your partner should place his hand just above your knees to push your legs back down to the starting position.

5. Handstand push-ups

I think this is the only way to train your shoulders for mass on dip stations, but it’s considered calisthenics as you can do it just like other exercises with your body weight. Keep in mind that this exercise is hard, and you need to train for some moves before being able to perform it correctly.

First, you need to learn how to handstand, and how to improve your shoulder strength in order to be able to do handstand pushups. Look for the tutorial on how to make it below. Despite the fact, this exercise is not a beginner friendly but you can learn how to do it. Don’t forget to use a spotter until you get good at this exercise.

*This exercise is easily done on dip bars as it may seem harder to do it on dip stations because they vary much.

6. Pronated grip/ Supinated grip: Inverted Rows

Pullups aren’t the only way to train your back on dip stations, here’s another calisthenics move to target your lats and middle back. It’s called the inverted rows. There’s not much here about this exercise because it’s not that strong as pull-ups.

Watch this video for instructions:

If you can’t perform pull-ups the right way, I recommend doing this exercise 2-3 times a week to improve your back muscles strength to be able to perform pull-ups.

Choosing the right dip station

Before buying the dip station I suggest you to think about your training program, for example, what specific body parts you want to train. That’s important because, if you want to do some pull ups and hanging leg raises you can choose a cheaper station that will save you some money.

And with time you can upgrade your dip station to a multifunctional one, allowing you to perform all the 6 exercise listed above and even more.

But before buying you also have to think about space in your home or garage gym. There are many things to consider before buying dip stations. Here’s a full guide that will help you choose the right one for you.

Conclusion

Dip station is an essential part in any gym because you literally can work out all of your upper body muscles with it. They are used also to define some muscles groups for advanced lifters like when performing chest dips. The point is to get ripped and stronger, and dip stations will do that for you.

That’s why choosing the best dip station is critical, but it depends on your needs.

About the AuthorDumbbellsgeek

Hey! My name is Paul Sheldon. I live in Nashville, TN and I love all things related to sports. Naturally I love workking out and I do it every day. If you want to talk feel freee to hit me a message or if you happen to be in Nashville we can get a coffee, I know a great place. Peace!