When it comes to doing badass, functional strength exercises, dips are your number one choice. You look badass doing them and they require some muscle work in order to pull them off. Now let’s look at some other reasons why you should be doing dips
No Gym Required
In order to perform dips, you don’t need a gym. You can buy a dip station and do it at home, you can do them on rings in a park, you can do them on a straight bar in the park, you can do them on parallel bars in a park
On the most basic level, you can use a chair and do chair dips at home. So right from the get go you have a very efficient “gym” exercise that you can perform anywhere you want
It’s the Upper Body Squat
No, that does not mean dips count as doing legs. Dips are one of the essential upper body strength building exercises
They workout triceps, chest, and lower back. They also are an excellent upper body mass builder, so try incorporating it in your upper body routine, maybe with some super-sets
They Improve Your Bench Press
Yep, if you are stalling on your bench press, try fixing it with some dips. Dips are an upper body Closed Kinetic Chain (CKC) exercise, which means you do stuff while your hands are stationary
It’s also an exercise which is easily mastered in its bodyweight form. When you do that, you can easily put a dumbbell between your legs or a weighted vest for extra resistance
They Improve Your Lockout Strength
Another benefit of doing dips is they improve your lockout strength. Think about it, doing dips you are constantly doing lockouts with your body weight. This means you can practice lockouts safely
That brings us to point #3, it can help improve your bench since bench pressing is all about the lockout
They give you a V-taper
Since it’s an upper body exercise working your shoulders, chest, and arms, it will give you an upper-body V-taper look. You will be mean and lean and you will have dips to thank for it
Now that we saw what the benefits of doing dips are, let’s get over some of the dip variations and how to perform them
