Several Exercises Using Dip Bars

Mohamed Thabet
9 min readFeb 18, 2022

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What is Dipbar workout?

Dip bars are perfect for doing dips for the triceps, but with a little creativity, you can use dip bars to train your entire upper body, including your abdominals. The bars provide a sturdy base to work from, allowing you to perform a multitude of exercises.

Dips:

Dips emphasize the triceps muscles. To perform a dip, stand facing the base of the bars and place one hand on each bar with your palm facing inward. To get to this position, lift your body into the air with your knees bent and fix yourself on the bars. Keep your arms straight to flatten your back. Next, bend your elbows while keeping your arms pressed at your sides and lower your body, stopping when your elbows make 90-degree angles. You can lean forward slightly with your upper body and look down, but keep your spine straight.

Leg Raises:

To do leg raises and work your abs, take the same starting position as for dips, but point your body away from the base of the bars. With your arms and back straight, raise your legs until they are parallel to the floor. If it’s hard for you to lift your legs straight with control, keep your knees bent. Lower your legs straight up and lower them toward the floor to complete one rep.

Modified Pull-Ups:

Pull-ups target the muscles in your lower back, but the biceps and shoulder muscles also play a role. Doing a modified pull-up with a dip bar means that you don’t have to lift all of your body weight at a time. This version is more available for those who don’t have much upper body strength. To perform a modified pull-up, place your hands about shoulder-width apart on one bar, with either an overhand or underhand grip. The hand position may be changed for variety. Then hang from the crossbar with your arms outstretched and walk your feet forward until your legs are straight and your chest is in line with your hands. Pull your chest toward the bar by bending your elbows. To finish the exercise, lower back down.

Modified Push-Ups:

The pushup is an effective exercise for the triceps, chest, and shoulder muscles. Using bars to perform push-ups reduces weight on your upper body, making the exercise possible for just about anyone. Begin by standing to the side of the dips bars that you dip into. Grab one bar with both hands, palms facing down and about shoulder-width apart. Then bend your elbows outward and bring your chest toward the bar. Press your body back to the starting position to complete one modified push-up. Keep your spine straight throughout.

Learn More:

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Do dips and pullups work the same muscles?

Pull-ups and dips are multi-joint compound exercises that target several muscle groups in the upper body. Pull-ups primarily work the lats, which are the largest muscle in your back. However, several muscles in your upper back and arms help, including the traps, rhombic, and biceps. Dips target your shoulders, triceps, and chest muscles. If you dive perpendicular to the floor, you target your triceps more than your chest. If you lean forward a little, you hit your chest muscles more than your triceps.

Are dip bars stable?

Dip bars come in all shapes and sizes, and they can be great tools for building strong and powerful triceps. We are constantly trying to improve our triceps training and strength for all of the push-ups we routinely do, such as the bench press, the pin press, and the overhead press.

The versatility of a dip bar is crucial to consider for home gym owners because it can dictate the gym flow. Some dip bars come in a simple design and are meant to be used for dips, L-sit-ups, push-ups, and more, but they can be restricted to movements such as pull-ups, which are stable on dip stands.

For this reason, we consider diversity very high on the list of criteria when we review regression bars. If you can figure out what type of dipping tape you need, your process and choice will immediately become easier.

Core exercises with dip bar?

Using a dip bar for its intended purpose of lowering the triceps, of course, is not easy. Even carrying your body weight on your arms on a solid shoulder is difficult for many people.

We’ll get to know the dip bar pick-up and how to do it:

The dip bar pike up is a particularly hardcore whole-body movement that requires serious strength and control, especially in the oblique muscles, which tend to be underdeveloped with traditional training exercises. It’s a good supplement for a shoulder day, belly day, or a great way to boost your isometric strength.

  1. Place your hands on the bars and raise yourself into a “front support” position (arms at sides, weight on hand bars), until nothing is in your way.
  2. Press your shoulder blades firmly down your back to make your chest proud. (If you can’t hold yourself for at least 10–15 seconds without your shoulders collapsing over your ears, work in this pose for a while first.)
  3. From here, brace through your stomach muscles to raise your legs together in front of you while at the same time leaning back slightly, reaching a higher body position. Hold it if you like, or slowly lower your legs to repeat.

Learn More:

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Exercises with dip bars?

1. Inverted row:

A regular weightlifting class involves standing bent over and moving an outside weight up and down. With this inverted row, you will move your body weight up and down in such a way that you target symmetrical muscles with the help of your dip bar.

How To Do:

  1. Begin sitting or lying down with your back on the floor under the dip bars.
  2. Depending on the type of dip bar you’re working with, place your hand in a neutral or inverted position on the dip bar.
  3. Move your body so that your arms are stretched, your knees are at about a 90-degree angle, and the rest of your body is in a straight line.
  4. Raise your body by bending your elbows slightly until your body reaches the bar. The goal is to get your back muscles to primarily support this movement. Keep your arms close to your body, your body in a straight line, and your feet in the same position as you move.
  5. Slowly lower yourself again until you return to the third step position.

When done correctly, the inverted row engages your back, biceps, and glutes.

2. Assisted dip:

The next option when the regular dip is too difficult is dip assistance. There are gym machines dedicated to assisted diving but you can also attach resistance bands to incline bars to take on some of your weight. To do an assisted dip with resistance bands, follow these steps:

How To Do:

  1. Attach one resistance band to each of the dip bars.
  2. Put your hands on the bars. Start with your arms extended but not locked. Place your knees on the resistance band.
  3. Slowly lower your body by bending your elbows until they are at a 90-degree angle. You should feel that the resistance band is supporting some of your weight.
  4. Raise yourself back to the starting position.

Finding the perfect resistance level and how far you can connect the resistance band can take some trial and error.

3. Extended ROM Push-Ups:

Dip stations are versatile pieces of exercise equipment that can be used for more than just diving. If you have a steel-framed dip station like The Ultimate Body Press, you can put it down and use the sides for incline push-ups and other Parallette exercises. By using the extended ROM (range of motion) push-up exercise, you can lower yourself into the passive space and target your lower chest muscles more effectively.

How To Do:

  1. Lay your dip station on its side with the top facing you.
  2. Hold each sidebar firmly, about halfway between the top and bottom of the device. You may have to adjust based on your height.
  3. Walk with your feet behind you until your body and arms are fully extended in an inclined plank position.
  4. Maintaining a tight core, lower yourself toward the floor, bending your elbows and keeping them bent.
  5. Lower yourself as low as you can while maintaining form. Ideally, your chest will be under your hands.
  6. At the bottom of the movement, push yourself back to the starting position.

In addition to using a dip station or Parallette bars to extend the ROM compression, you can also use them for beginner-friendly modified push-ups. To do this, you will finish the movement when your chest reaches your hands, rather than extending the ROM.

4. L-sits:

L-sits can be done using a set of Parallettes (sometimes called dip bars or equations), hanging rings, two chests, or benches of the same height.

How To Do:

  1. Sit in an L-shape with your knees slightly straight, or alternate with one leg on the floor at a time.
  2. Straighten the arms, lock elbows at the sides, pull the shoulder blades down and away from the ears, and engage the arms. Next, push down into your palms, and engage your primary lift legs (straight together) off the floor until they are parallel to (or close to parallel with) the floor.
  3. Hold here, keeping the knees straight, and press the quads together tightly, pointing to the toes, looking straight ahead to maintain a neutral neck.
  4. Aim to accumulate a total of 30 seconds of L-sit hold per set, resting 10–20 seconds each time you fall. As you build strength, increase the time to 45 seconds, then 1 minute or more.

5. Scapular Dips:

Scapular dips are the cherry on top of the upper body dip bar workout. Scapular dips, like shoulder push-ups, target the shoulders. It’s an effective warm-up for a more vigorous dip station workout, plus it’s a great way to add shoulder strength and definition.

How To Do:

  1. Stand between the dip bars and hold each side firmly. The bars should rest on your palm with your wrists stacked.
  2. Push down while slowly raising your feet, bending your knees, and crossing your ankles for stability.
  3. Keeping your arms closed, lower your torso, allowing your shoulders to rock your shoulders up toward your ears.
  4. At the bottom of your range of motion, push up for full extension again.

This is an effective bodyweight exercise to correct shoulder instability, as well as build strength for both push-ups and pull-ups.

Originally published at https://stepbyfitness.com/ on 18 February 2022

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