Triceps dips are a difficult strength training exercise to perform because it requires you to lift up your own body weight. It’s a compound exercise, meaning it requires movement at more than one joint. During triceps dips, a coordinated movement at your shoulder and elbow joints is created by the contraction of a variety of upper body muscles.
Triceps Dips
According to the American Council on Exercise, to perform triceps dips, position your body in between a set of shoulder-width dip bars. Place your hands on each bar and lift your body up by extending your arms. Bend your knees so that you will be able to lower your body and not make contact with the floor. Once you’re ready, keep your hips straight and your arms in close to your torso as you bend your arms, lowering your body down. Continue down until your elbows are bent to 90 degrees and then extend your elbows to return to starting position.
Muscles in Triceps Dips
As you push yourself back up during triceps dips, your elbows extend and your shoulders perform flexion with a little bit of adduction. According to ExRx.net, triceps dips primarily target your triceps brachii muscles, which are located at the back of your upper arms and perform elbow extension. Your anterior deltoid contracts to make your shoulders flex. In addition, your rhomboids, levator scapulae, latissimus dorsi, as well as your pectoralis major and minor assist in the movement.
Chest Muscles
Your chest muscles include your pectoralis major and minor. Your pectoralis major is the largest muscle in the chest and it performs shoulder adduction and extension. It originates at the front of your sternum and your ribs and then fans across your chest and inserts at the top of your humerus bone. The small pectoralis minor provides abduction, downward rotation and depression at the scapula joint. It inserts on the front of your third through fifth ribs and inserts on the upper front part of your scapula.
Emphasizing the Chest
The pectoralis major and minor provide assistance during the triceps dips, which means they will improve in strength when the exercise is performed consistently. However, you can more effectively increase your chest strength by completing chest dips instead of triceps dips. Chest dips are completed using the same exact technique as triceps dips, but are performed on a wider set of bars with your hands utilizing an oblique grip, or with bars running diagonally under your palms. This difference causes the movement to involve a greater degree of shoulder adduction and a lesser degree of elbow extension and shoulder flexion. As a result, the primary muscle targeted when performing chest dips is the pectoralis major, according to ExRx.net.
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