DIPS : Chest Vs Triceps Vs Shoulders (KNOW THE SCIENCE)

Updated: Jan 12, 2022

The dip is a strength exercise that can be done with bodyweight and also with free weights and it primarily targets our chest, shoulders, and triceps in varying degrees.

Prime movers: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps

Stabilizing muscles: Back, Core muscles

You can perform dips by grasping two parallel bars that are approximately shoulder-width apart. Raise yourself up to an initial position with your arms extended and supporting the entire weight of your body. Next, lower yourself to a final position where your elbows are bent and your shoulders are mildly stretched.

But now the degree of influence on these prime movers can be changed by changing the way we align our hands and torso while performing this exercise.

That's the reason this exercise is divided into two names:

Chest/Shoulder dip
Triceps dip

Now let's see how to perform the dips to increase the influence on these particular muscles and the science behind that :

Before we start let's get into the basics of physics to get a better understanding of Torque = Force × Moment Arm

Torque is the measure of the force that can cause an object to rotate about an axis.

The force vector here would be the perpendicular line drawn from the arms towards the floor since that's the position where the maximum force of our weight would be felt.
Moment arm for the elbow and shoulder joint is needed here to know the activation of triceps and shoulder muscles respectively.

Force Vector : Perpendicular is drawn from the position of holding the bar to the ground.

Elbow Moment Arm : Perpendicular is drawn from the elbow joint to the force vector.

Shoulder Moment Arm : Perpendicular is drawn from the shoulder joint to the force vector.

Now to know about the triceps and shoulder activation, since the force is constant we just have to check the moment arms.

Longer Elbow Moment Arm = Higher Triceps Activation

Longer Shoulder Moment Arm = Higher Shoulders/Chest Activation.

Chest activation is not determined by the moment arm instead we consider the stretch and contraction happening with the different body positions while performing the dips.

Greater Stretch and Contraction of Pectoral Muscles: Higher Chest Activation

Lesser Stretch and Contraction of Pectoral Muscles: Lesser Chest Activation

1.TRICEP DIP

While performing the triceps dip the whole idea is to keep our torso upright so that the elbows move backwards, thus increasing the elbow moment arm and increasing the activation of our triceps muscles since that's the muscle that influences the elbow movement in this position. But if you stay erect and do not allow the elbows to move backwards as far as possible for you then you might never get the peak activation of your triceps muscles.

Elbow moment arm > Shoulder moment arm which means that with this position there would be a higher tricep activation along with the shoulder and chest muscles activation.

And as you can see the stretch on the chest muscles especially the costal head of the pectorals is significantly less in comparison with the shoulder/chest dip, thus reducing the lower chest activation.

2.CHEST/SHOULDER DIP

While performing the chest/shoulder dip the whole idea is to allow our torso to move forward as much as possible for us, based on our mobility. So the chest/shoulder dip always aim on leaning forward to increase their activation.

Elbow moment arm < Shoulder moment arm which means that with this position there would be a higher shoulder activation along with the chest and tricep muscles activation.

And as you can see the stretch on the chest muscles especially the costal head of the pectorals is significantly higher in comparison with the tricep dip, thus increasing the lower chest activation.

LET'S LOOK INTO THE SIDE-TO-SIDE COMPARISON OF THESE DIPS

With both these variations chest, triceps and shoulders all three will be activated but by using the above variations you can change the degree of influence on the particular muscles.