Shoulder Problems With Dips

Dips develop the strength of your chest, shoulders and triceps. Done incorrectly, you can strain your shoulders or the cartilage of your chest. Done properly, dips build upper-body strength and muscle, and can assist your progress in other exercises such as the bench or overhead press. Consult a health-care practitioner before beginning any strength-training program.

Technique

Perform dips using special bars that allow you to brace your arms slightly wider than your torso. From a position with your arms fully-extended, lower your self under control then push yourself back up to your starting position. Never drop into the bottom position of the dip --- always use the strength of your muscles, do not depend on gravity to do your work for you. This exercise remains similar to a gymnast pushing himself up between parallel bars, and your feet should not touch the ground. If you are not strong enough to do dips, place a box under your feet and use it to push with your legs. Reduce the amount of leg effort over time until you can perform unassisted dips.

Shoulders

Your shoulders strain more the lower you descend and the faster you descend. If you plummet into the bottom position of a dip, the small muscles of your rotator cuff must contract to catch your body weight --- and they are not strong enough to do so without injury. Dropping into an extreme range of motion is thus doubly injurious because stretching your shoulder beyond your normal range of motion then straining the smallest muscles of the joint can result in a quick visit to your physician.

Chest

While pain in your shoulder may seem to indicate that you have injured your shoulder joint, a rupture of your pectoralis major, the large muscle of your chest, may present as shoulder pain. The large muscles of your chest not only work to bring your arms into the middle of your body, they strain during dips. Cases of repair requiring surgery following dips were noted in the 1998 issue of "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise."

Healthy Shoulders

To maintain the stability of your shoulder joint, perform an equal number of exercises for your back. Chinups and rowing exercises work the muscles on the other side of your shoulder and provide balanced development. Even without equipment, you can perform chinups anywhere you can hang from. If you do not have the strength to chin yourself, use a box or platform to allow your to push with your legs in the same manner as you may have utilized with dips.