Dips - very important exercise
Remember: bench press - the heaviest basic movement that makes you work not only and not so much the chest, but the arms, deltas, trapezes, the entire complex of muscles in the upper back and even the widest.
If at least a couple of "participants" of this complex "ensemble" is too weak and does not meet the strength level of the other muscles, then the bench press, the one at the limit of intensity that only gives the growth of the chest, will not work. You will endlessly hover around the same weight, usually 80-85 kg, as if in an enchanted circle.
To get out of it, you need to "teach" the muscles of the entire shoulder girdle to contract powerfully and, most importantly, smoothly. How to achieve this? "Pump" to the point of stupefying every auxiliary muscle? Of course not! As in any purely strength exercise, in the bench press, the first place is not the absolute strength of the muscles, but their mutual coordination. This is what you need to train!
In the process of such training, the muscles will "adapt" to each other and in the level of strength. Fortunately, there is one exercise in the world that is almost identical to the bench press in terms of the mechanism of muscle coordination. As in the bench press, the main load falls on the triceps, but the triceps are "accompanied" by all the muscles of the upper torso, including the chest and widest. And this is push-UPS on bars!
If you start to persistently "hammer" power push-UPS with weights and will consistently increase it, the effectiveness of bench presses will immediately grow! Moreover, you will see with your own eyes a fabulously fast transformation of your figure - a visual expansion of the shoulders due to a clear increase in deltas, drawing the contours of the chest and straightening the back. In bodybuilding slang, this is called "making a frame."
We are talking about the formation of a very special posture with effectively deployed shoulders, which immediately recognizes a real bodybuilder. Stooping is not compatible with our sport! Push-UPS on bars are not the only exercise of this kind, but, undoubtedly, the most effective!
It is also important that at any stage of training, push-UPS on bars with weights can give a powerful boost to the effectiveness of all types of bench press exercises, including bench press!
Technique:
- Starting position - between the parallel bars on the straights (but without perenashivanie elbows) hands.
- Neutral grip (palms to yourself).
- After taking a deep breath, begin to bend your elbows and slowly descend down to a moderate stretch of the shoulder joint. "Depth" depends on your strength and degree of flexibility.
- From the bottom position, go up, unbending your arms. When you pass the most difficult point of ascent, help yourself by exhaling.
- Varying the technique, you need to shift the focus from time to time to the chest, then to the triceps.
The emphasis on the triceps.
Initially, push-UPS from the bars are aimed at the triceps. The triceps is a triceps muscle located between the elbow and shoulder joints. All three heads (long, side and middle) work when extending at the elbow joint. To make the main load fall on the triceps, keep your hands close to the torso during lowering (do not spread your elbows to the sides, when bending they should "look" back). The legs are straight, the chin is raised, and the forward tilt is minimal.
(If the distance between the bars is greater than the width of your shoulders, then part of the load will be "removed" from the triceps and "transferred" to the chest.)
Emphasis on the chest.
Small variations in the technique turn push-UPS on the bars into a "chest" exercise. Let me remind you that the main chest muscles are the large pectorals. They cover the entire surface of the chest from the collarbone to the sternum and are attached to the humerus. Their main functions are bringing the hands together in front of them and turning the upper parts of the hands.
To push-UPS on the bars "beat" on the chest, during lowering, spread your elbows to the sides, bend your knees and lean forward.
Another way to use the chest is to" expand " the grip. To do this, in some halls, set the separated bars, the distance between which varies from standard to wide. It is necessary to take them closer to the "wide" ends - this position itself "spreads" the elbows to the sides.
Just keep in mind: too wide grip and excessive "spreading" of the elbows puts the shoulders at risk - there is a risk of stretching or even tearing the joint bag. In addition, too wide a grip will play a bad joke with you: the load from the pectoral muscles will shift to the widest, large round muscles of the back and the bottom of the small pectoral muscles that run under the large pectorals. The best option is to work with the grip only a little wider than the shoulders, and the elbows are spread out to the sides at an angle of about 45 degrees to the body-no more.
How many repetitions should I do?
For most, the optimal number of repetitions is from 8 to 15 with short intervals between sets. When you can safely perform 15 repetitions without weight, start doing push-UPS with weights.
Follow the technique: the whole point is to do push-UPS technically, and with increasing strength, gradually increase the weight. If you take a huge weight, with which you can barely drop a third of the amplitude, or even less, the result will be so-so. It turns out that you perform partial repetitions, but the effect of them will also be partial. Note: partial repetitions are not the main method of training, but an auxiliary technique.
So, remember!
Emphasis on the chest:
- Neutral grip slightly wider than the shoulders
- Forward tilt when lowering
- Elbows slightly turned to the sides
- At the bottom of the stop at the point of comfortable stretching
- Lift up to straighten your arms.
The emphasis on the triceps:
- Neutral grip at shoulder width
- When lowering the body is straight, the chin is raised
- Elbows close to the body
- At the bottom of the stop at the point of comfortable stretching
- Lift up to straighten your arms.
Train, rest, progress!
