When do you do dips?

[boardn10]

Since dips hit the chest, shoulder and triceps, I used to do all those body parts in one day. Since there is a lot of overlap, and I started doing chest on one day and shoulders and triceps on another day, I cut the dips out! I figure too much oberlap and possible over training. What do you all think?

-Rich

[Adena]

Everyone's different, but most people recover well enough from the upper body exercises you mentioned to train them twice a week, if they want to. I'm not an expert, though.

I recently started doing my light assistance work on a different day than the main lift. For example, I do heavy overhead press on one day, then light assistance work for overhead press on a different day. That way I'm hitting more or less the same muscles twice a week, once heavy, once light. You could consider dips an assistance exercise for either overhead press or bench.

I remember you were having some health issues recently, which is a bummer. How ya feeling lately?

[boardn10]

Still having a lot of shoulder pain in my left shoulder and elbow and wrist issues.....

I realized tonight that I can no longer do overhead presses. I get far too much pain in my left shoulder! I will have to rely on chest press, dips and side raises, front and rear raises for shoulder...no more overhead press.

I did dips tonight but my chest was still sore from Monday's workout.

[Adena]

Sorry to hear that!

[James]

I do a LOT of dips - weighted dips are the cornerstone of my push routine.

I do full-body workouts 3 x week so for me there's no issue with overlapping. However I think avoiding superior compound movements like thiss due to worries about overlapping is going to be counterproductive in the long run. There's a reason weighted dips are often referred to as the 'upper body squat' - because they're f*cking awesome.

[James]

I realized tonight that I can no longer do overhead presses.

I struggle with overhead work too, in my case due to a persistent issue with a bulging spinal disc.

Apart from dips which hit the delts hard, I also do elevated push ups on gymnastic rings i.e. elevated means the rings are near ground level & my feet are on a higher bench/platform, so that the angle of my body recruits the delts more than if my body was flat.

I also do an exercise call 'cross pulls' that hits EVERY muscle in the body above the abs including delts:



Make sure you're very well warmed up before attempting this exercise otherwise you're likely to tear a bicep tendon!