maratoolChest Dips
How to do the chest dips
- Stand in between the parallel bars.
- Grip the handles of the parallel bars and push yourself up to the starting position with straightened arms.
- With your elbows close to your body keep your hips straight, lower your body forward by bending your elbows so your chest is leading as you go down.
- Raise yourself back up to the starting position and repeat.
- Repeat.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Chest Push (multiple response)medicine ball
- Chest Stretch on Stability Ballexercise ball
- Close Grip Barbell Bench Pressbarbell
- Cross Over - With Bandsband
- Decline Barbell Bench Pressbench + barbell
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.