Mon Sep 09

Impossible dip tutorial

Yerai Alonso

Yerai Alonso

Impossible dip tutorial

Impossible dip is one of those tricks that you see and think "it looks great, lets try if I can do it", and then you try and you don't even move one inch, you don't even know how to move in that position. That's when you can use this tutorial. In the app you have the impossible dip plan so you can progress along with the knowledge that we are going to see here.

To learn how to do this trick, we are going to use the experience and advice from some of my partners in my team, Jose and Richard, and from the great Russian sensei Artem Morozov, one of the best athletes when it comes to impossible dips.

Impossible dip

If you don't know what it is, the goal is to be in the parallel bars with your forearms, and get up until you lock your elbows, without any swinging, jump or momentum, just using your triceps strength.

Richard

Richard tells us that he learn this movement by doing eccentric work (negative reps) and assisted reps with a partner. He would do them twice a week and every month he could go lower and felt stronger until he made it.

We have to take into account that when he started to train for impossible dip he already had a lot of strength and experience with basic exercises like dips and Russian dips.

Lets see the exercises he recommends:

The fingers tell you how low to go until you go up again, when you feel stronger use less fingers.

You go down as much as you can and your partner helps you go up again pushing with the reverse of his hands.

Negative rep: go down as slow as you can until you rest on your forearms, use a jump to go up again.

Jose

Jose's experience was similar, but he started to train impossible dip when he hadn't that much strength or experience, so he had to work on his regular dips. The rest of exercises were similar to Richard's.

Regular dips

Artem Morozov

The Russian calisthenics expert recommends us some exercises that are not that common. In them you have to set your feet at the same height as your hands and work leaning backwards, also doing reps as low as possible in this position. Lets see them:

Lean backwards as much as you can (looks easy)

In this position do reps as low as you can

You can try it on the floor, remember to keep your hip as high as possible

Finally, if you can, he recommends us to do weighted dips, trying to increase the weigh little by little.

Other exercises

Here we have other exercises that will help you, so you can do longer routines:

Impossible dip assisted with poles

Hollow body dips: protracted and depressed scapula, flat lower back, contracted abs

Isometric, go as low as possible and hold the position

Partial reps, go as low as you can and up again

Russian dips, go down to your forearms and use momentum to go up again

Technique

Strict technique for this movement has this characteristics:

  • Shoulders behind elbows at every moment
  • Hip at the same height of your wrists, not lower
  • No swinging, jumping, momentum or inertia
  • Minimum of 3" going up

Injury risk

Finally I have to warn you that this exercise is very heavy on your elbows, and there is a risk that you may experience pain. My recommendation is to start little by little with the easiest exercises, and don't train them more than twice a week, without doing a lot of reps. That way your muscles and conjunctive tissue will have time to adapt and you won't suffer any problem.

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