How to do your first dip
Skip the bench dip. The first rung is simply holding yourself up. A six-step ladder from support hold to full dip, at a depth your shoulders tolerate.
Most people learn dips by lowering themselves off a bench and pushing back up until their shoulders complain. Then they try parallel bars, sink too deep on the first rep, and decide dips are bad for them.
Dips are not the problem. Skipping the steps under them is. Like the pull-up, a dip is a skill with a ladder, and the first rung is simply holding yourself up.
What a good dip looks like.
Start at the top, arms straight, body held above the bars. Shoulders pressed down, away from your ears. Lower under control until your upper arms are about level with the bars, then press back to straight arms.
Elbows travel back, not out to the sides. A slight forward lean is normal. Depth is set by what your shoulders tolerate on the day, not by how low someone on the internet goes.
Why the bench dip is the wrong starting point.
The bench dip is usually the first version people are shown, but it puts your shoulders in a stretched position behind your body with your hands pinned to the bench. That is a lot to ask of a joint that has not yet learned to support your weight.
Starting at the top of the movement instead teaches the thing that matters most: keeping your shoulders down and stable while they carry load. Everything else on the ladder is built on it.
The ladder.
1. Support hold. Straight arms on parallel bars, shoulders down, legs still. Work towards 30 seconds. If your shoulders creep up towards your ears, the set is over.
2. Shallow dips. From the support hold, lower only a few centimetres and press back up. Shoulders stay down throughout, 3 sets of 8. Add depth a little at a time, over weeks rather than sessions.
3. Negatives. Start at the top and lower yourself as slowly as you can, aiming for 5 seconds, to the depth you can control. Step back up to the top rather than pressing. 4 or 5 single reps while you are fresh.
4. Band-assisted dips. A band looped across the bars, under your knees, takes some of your bodyweight at the bottom, where the movement is hardest. Move to a thinner band over time rather than adding reps forever.
5. The dip. Full range you can control, from straight arms to upper arms level with the bars and back, no swing, no bounce at the bottom.
6. Ring dips, later. Rings move, so your shoulders have to stabilise in every direction at once. Start again at the first rung: a support hold on the rings, before a single dip.
How often, and how much.
Two or three pushing sessions a week, with a day between them. Stop each set two reps short of failure. You are building a pattern, not testing yourself.
Change one thing at a time: hold longer, lower slower, go a little deeper, or drop to a thinner band. If the front of your shoulder aches after a session, the depth was too much for now, so pull it back.
Dips and pull-ups belong together.
Dips push, pull-ups pull, and most calisthenics programmes pair them for that reason. If you are working towards your first pull-up, the pull-up ladder runs alongside this one well, on the same bars, in the same session.
They also meet in the muscle-up. The top half of a muscle-up is a dip, and the transition is much easier to learn once your support hold is solid.
Where the app comes in.
The free Living Fit app puts this ladder in order and moves you up it on evidence. Clear a tier at target quality and the next one appears. Struggle with it, and the app steps you back rather than leaving you stuck on something you are not ready for.
It reads your readiness first, from three quick questions or a synced wearable, and sizes the session to the day. Every movement in the app has a video demo.
No card, no trial clock. It is free, and it stays free.
Training outdoors.
Malta's public park bars are a good place for this work, and they cost nothing. Parallel bars cover the first five rungs, and one band in a rucksack covers the assisted step.
If you would rather have someone watching your shoulders, that is what calisthenics coaching in Malta is for. Sean is an Advanced Level 3 coach, and the first session is free.
One caution.
If you have a shoulder, elbow or wrist problem, get it looked at by a doctor or physiotherapist before you start loading it. Living Fit Malta provides personal training, not medical or physiotherapy advice, and individual results vary.
Two ways to start: book a free first session, or start free in the app.
Written by Sean Dunbar Smyth.