What Muscles Do Dips Work?

Learn about the muscles you’ll be working with a variety of dip exercises, how to do them, and what not to do in this handy guide.

Dips are a brilliant exercise to add into your workout. They’re great for your chest and shoulders especially, but also your core strength, health of your joints, and your back too.

They can go wrong if you don’t understand them or know how to do them properly, which’ll be a waste of your time, you’ll make minimal progress, and maybe even pick up an injury.

So I’ve put together a little guide on what dip exercises can do when they are done properly, and how to do them. I’ll tell you where a lot of people get it wrong, and also give you some info on the muscles involved.

If you stick to it, you’ll get some decent results from this kind of exercise, and you can do them almost anywhere.

What Is A Dip?

Dips are where you hold yourself up with your arms, and lower yourself by bending your elbows until your upper arm is parallel to the ground.

These exercises work on more than one upper body muscle at once, and so you become you stronger you can increase their difficulty with more sets or reps, or by adding in some weights – which is why people love them so much. They’re easy to do wherever you are.

The Benefits Of Dip Exercises

I’ve been adding dips into my routine for a long time. I love them. Mostly, because they’re excellent at helping me build muscle mass.

As you get better at them, you become stronger, and can increase the challenge or weight, which keeps your muscles working harder and therefore they increase in size. This is the ultimate target for most of us – to be able to build upper body muscle.

It’s that scalability that’s an advantage on its own. With some exercises, you can only go so far with them.

But with dips, there’s a lot you can change or amplify to make it more challenging or work different areas.

Developing from assisted dips with no weights and working your way up to PBs in weights and unassisted, those targets and sense of achievement can massively contribute towards your progression.

This kind of exercise is also really good for improving the way your body is able to move.

You’ll be fully stretching and contracting your elbow joints and training groups of muscles, which will improve your motion range and flexibility.

Loosening and strengthening your joints means you’ll suffer less aches and pains in these areas, and this could even prevent injuries from occurring as we age.

And let’s not underestimate just how convenient these exercises are. You don’t need a gym. Maybe some added equipment if you wanted to. But as a whole, they’re easy to do anywhere, and they slot into busy schedules too. This makes them easier to stick to and get better at.

The Muscles

Dip exercises are a compound exercise, which basically means we’re training a group of muscles rather than an individual muscle in your arms, back and chest, or around your back.

Triceps

Your triceps will be working a lot here, when you’re pushing and extending during a dip. They play a heavy role in our arm strength and everyday function, and if we don’t keep them strong, it affects our arms, elbows and shoulders.

And of course aesthetically, your arms will be bigger and stronger.

The long head, the lateral, and the medial head are the three parts (or heads) the make up the triceps. These work together to extend you arm and stabilise your shoulder.

Pectorals

Your pecs are your chest muscles – pectoralis minor and major – from your breastbone to your shoulder. These allow you to move/rotate your arm in different directions and to pull towards your core.

With its pectoralis major and minor, this muscle group flexes, adducts (drawing into the middle of your body), and rotates the arm. When you push your arms away from your body or your body away from your arms, you’re using your chest muscles.

Deltoids

Our delts (deltoids) are the biggest shoulder muscle, and consist of the anterior deltoid, lateral deltoid, and posterior deltoid. As a group they flex, extend and move your arm in different directions, and also support the shoulder joint.

The anterior deltoid will have the biggest workout during dips, but as a stabiliser (helping with movement) as opposed to a primary muscle (like a tricep).

Rhomboids

Your rhomboids are one of the muscles in your upper back that connect your spine to your shoulder blades and help retract them.

They work the same as deltoids in dips – they’re very important in arm movement, and stabilise the shoulder.

Types of Dips & How to Do Them

We’ve now got a better idea of some of the most commonly used muscles in dip exercises. Here though, I’ll go through different ways to dip, which muscles will feel it, and how to do it.

The Chest Dip

With chest dips, you’ll primarily be working on the Pectoralis Major, Minor, Anterior Deltoid, and Rhomboids, plus:

• The Triceps Brachii – At the back of your arm.
• The Teres Major – Enables arm rotation and movement.
• The Levator Scapulae – Lifts your shoulder blade.
• The Latissimus Dorsi – The large muscle on your back that works your shoulder and lower spine.

You’ll need some bars or something to lean on either side of you, or find something similar at home that you can put your back towards instead, like a step or a bench.

1) Have an overhand grip for this, which means holding onto the bars with your hands forward, or out (depending on how your bars or lifting surface are positioned). Check your arms aren’t splayed apart – they should be no wider than shoulder-width.

2) Lift yourself up so that your arms are fully extended – this is your starting position.

3) Make sure your head and chest are straight, and then slowly bend your elbows and lower your body. Make sure your elbows stay nice and controlled – don’t let them bend outwards.

4) When your elbows are at 90 degrees, you need to straighten your arms back by pushing your body up, until your elbows nearly lock.

5) Repeat.

This chest dip will achieve muscle mass in your lower chest area and build up your pecs.

Triceps Dips

The Triceps dips will cover all the muscles in the chest dip, but also, of course, the Triceps Brachii, which is a primary muscle thats responsible for elbow extension movements.

You don’t need anything for this one – you really can do it anywhere.

1) Start by sitting on the ground, bending your knees, with your feet flat on the floor. Keeping your fingers facing forward, place your arms behind you on the floor.

2) Imagine a rope is pulling your pelvis up off the ground a few inches, so that all your weight is on your hands and feet.

3) Slowly lower your body back down again by bending your elbows.

4) Now straighten your arms, pressing down on your hands, and raising your hips back up again with your body.

5) Repeat.

For this, go as far as you feel is comfortable – so long as you can feel your triceps working. The more strength you gain with these, the lower you’ll be able to go.

Tip: An easier version is to move your feet closer to your body and bend your legs, and do the opposite to make it more difficult.

Weighted Dips

Adding weights to a dip is definitely going to be more challenging, so make sure you’ve already got some strength in your arms and that you’re confident you’re doing unweighted dips correctly.

With weights you’ll still be using the same muscles plus more of the trapezius, and the dip will be more intense, which’ll help improve your muscle growth and stamina. You can add the weight onto a special belt that hangs a weight plate or kettlebell from it.

1) Put the weight belt on around your waist, so that the weight plate or kettle bell hangs between your legs.

2) Now lift yourself up onto the parallel dip bars and perform a dip like normal.

Make sure you’re doing it properly and thoroughly with control. If you’re not, reduce the weight back down and build it up over a few weeks.

Dip Mistakes to Avoid

If any exercise is done incorrectly, you’ll at best suffer zero progress and at worst suffer an injury. Here are the common mistakes people make when doing dips:

Rounded Shoulders

An easy mistake to make, but don’t round your shoulders – you’ll be putting all the strain on them and your actual shoulder joint, which will cause an injury (and the correct muscles won’t be doing what they should be).

Keep your shoulders swept back and down.

Swinging Your Body

Again, doing this shifts all your weight onto your shoulder joint. Throughout every dip, keep your body still and controlled. Good core muscles will help with this, and will strengthen them too.

Not Going Low Enough

The third classic error is to not go low enough. This trims off the most impactful part of the dip, and your muscles and range of motion aren’t engaged fully enough.

So as well as controlling your body as you lower, make sure your elbows aren’t splaying outwards. Don’t go any further than 4 to 6 inches away from your sides. This way you’ll achieve a lower dip without putting your shoulder and elbows under unnecessary stress.

FAQs

Here are the questions I always get asked, and remember asking myself when I first started adding dips to my routine:

How Many Reps Should I Do for Dips?

As you progress, it’d be great if you could achieve 2 or 3 sets of 8-12 reps.

Just always start with what a comfortable amount. A lower number of really good reps is better than more poor-quality ones. This target is for maximum muscle growth and challenge, and something to work towards.

How Often Should I Do Dips?

1 to 2 times a week is more than sufficient, and gives your worked muscles a break ready for the next powerful session. Doing it too often may cause an injury. Consistency and gradual progress is way better.

How Much Weight Should You Add?

Always start with your own body weight – that might just be more than enough at first. How much weight you add to this depends on your own strength. Again, always better to start on the lighter side, rather than go too heavy and either get it wrong or get hurt, or both

To Sum Up

Dips are resident in my workout programme. They’re so easy to add in, even when you can’t get to the gym, or don’t have one. Because they’re convenient, it’s easier to be consistent with them.

And when you can stay consistent with something, you’ll start to see results. The way these dips work is that over time you will build muscle, strength and endurance, as well as build on your core strength and control.

It’s easy to make them more challenging too. There isn’t anything to dislike about dips.

The main thing is that you know what you’re working, and how to do them properly. I hope this quick guide has helped. Just make sure your form is good and solid for each and every single dip, and you’ll start seeing and feeling the progression you’re making.