Weighted Dips

Don’t be content with chair or parallel bar bodyweight dips

If there’s anything I’ve learned from training consistently for nearly two decades, it’s there’s always a next level to every exercise and training program. I stagnated at bodyweight dips for years. The video below is of my first time trying weighted dips, and I was delighted to learn I’m pretty strong at them.

So what took me so long to strap on a weight for this exercise?

Because it was so difficult for me to master parallel bar dips, I believed I would be terrible at weighted dips, and I couldn’t think of a reason that I’d need to get much stronger at the exercise. Those were my excuses until I aimed for learning muscle-ups. Muscle-ups are very very tricky to learn, specifically at that stage between a pull-up and a dip, the “transition.” For the past few months, I’ve been doing everything in my power to push through that transition without aid from a band or from pushing off the ground with my leg. I’ve done countless ring and straight bar progressions to a muscle-up, as suggested by gymnastic coaches, gymnasts, and online gurus. Weighted dips are my latest progression on that path to muscle-up mastery.

Also read: “Clothing for Muscular Women: 4 Simple Rules“

Why wait to try a new or harder exercise?

Honestly, I shouldn’t have waited until I was pushed by a different goal to at least test my strength at weighted dips. In the struggle of lifelong fitness, which is my primary goal, progress is necessary to maintain interest and excitement in a lifetime of regular exercise. Putting the body through new movements can provide a new goal when it might seem you have already overcome every goal. Through reaching for that next level in an exercise, we can discover our gifts but also, where we can improve. That’s what this weighted dip exercise provided for me: a new stimulus and goal to improve on.

One of my favorite muscle-up progression videos:

What exercises have you overlooked?

If you have been avoiding a specific exercise because you believe it’s not crucial for your goals, give it a try. Send me picture or a link to you doing the exercise, and I can share it on this site for other readers. If you don’t wish to share an image or video, comment below about the exercise(s) you’ve avoided and why.

Thanks for reading.

LLAFIT Senior Writer/Editor

As an athlete for over 21 years and a broke single mom for most of that time, I created brokesinglemomfitness.com, now LLAFIT.com, to aid anyone who believes the road to fitness requires a lot of cash or time. In reality, the way to fitness is paved with knowledge and firm principles; teaching readers how to master both is the goal of this site. LLAFIT – Lifelong Applied Fitness