Just got to deload week of block 2 for these. I'm looking for any cues or critiques that can aid in me making my form perfect.
Specifically any tips on how anyone was able to keep their chest up through the ascent of the dip?
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L-Russian dips. How can I make my form better?
Started by Austin7, October 1, 2014 · 18 Replies · 686 Views
Try to maintain your chest up and think to move your body upward and not on inclined direction, this should be achieved by think of press up while maintain the shoulders directly over the elbows and not in front of them.
my best tip is on the last set at the end insert a couple of super slow negative with legs in a V shape not L. and then think of move backward on your elbows using your triceps. do not move downward like a dips, move backward. i did a sort of this execution on the rings
http://youtu.be/QyLDBbeZaBU?list=UUS2QLPx5Iy5RWw72W2h2cvg
pretty intense. try to emulate it on pbars. brutal triceps variation.
alex87 said:Try to maintain your chest up and think to move your body upward and not on inclined direction, this should be achieved by think of press up while maintain the shoulders directly over the elbows and not in front of them.
my best tip is on the last set at the end insert a couple of super slow negative with legs in a V shape not L. and then think of move backward on your elbows using your triceps. do not move downward like a dips, move backward. i did a sort of this execution on the rings
http://youtu.be/QyLDBbeZaBU?list=UUS2QLPx5Iy5RWw72W2h2cvg
pretty intense. try to emulate it on pbars. brutal triceps variation.
I wonder here, I believe to be on the HBP/PE11 and tried executing it similarly to that video of yours, alex87. In the course video I could not really understand what the person was doing exactly. Been doing this one for 3+ months now and if you say I should use that much of triceps, then I have to question it because there has been nothing in the HBP series preparing my triceps for this much strain. It has been shoulders and lats (except for HBP/PE1 and PE2). The description says "lower down completely to the bottom of the dip before before lowering backward to the upper arm support", which doesn't make sense in the video. I don't see Dillon going all the way down, which would be more shoulder mobility than triceps strength, which is contradictory to me. My variation looks more like this: "
", with a slow descent and trying to return slowly. Can somebody please correct me because if I am wrong here then I must have been doing wrong for over a year now in the HBP series and must go back to start and find a way to implement triceps more in the movements. Please help
Coach? Alex? Anybody able to clarify?
Well only to increase the triceps strength you can consider the idea of a modified russian dips where you put the entire forearm on the bar rather then upper arms. considering the idea of Coach who said that this version does not provide the same benefit of russian dip...yes this is correct. std russian dip cannot be substituted by them but maybe....introduced by them.
Also look for these 2 things:
1-film yourself from the side and see if you shoulder is aligned with the elbow
2-don't let your shoulders to sag, the lats must be activated in order to hold the shoulder above the elbows.
Nino Begovic said:Coach? Alex? Anybody able to clarify?
Click on the links below and carefully observe the overall body position differences.
Exrx.net: Chest dip- This variation primarily targets the chest.
EXrx.net- Triceps dip-This variation primarily targets the triceps.
alex87 said:Well only to increase the triceps strength you can consider the idea of a modified russian dips where you put the entire forearm on the bar rather then upper arms. considering the idea of Coach who said that this version does not provide the same benefit of russian dip...yes this is correct. std russian dip cannot be substituted by them but maybe....introduced by them.
Also look for these 2 things:
1-film yourself from the side and see if you shoulder is aligned with the elbow
2-don't let your shoulders to sag, the lats must be activated in order to hold the shoulder above the elbows.
in a recent russian dip form check, coach said you should try to bring your shoulders behind your elbows
IF you can control yourself and you do not get momentum from falling forward into the bottom part of the dip you can use the shoulders back, but if you substitute the triceps pushing movement with this movement....I don't think you get all the russian dip benefits
Btw if doubts exist , reference is Coach Sommer. not me.
alex87 said:Well only to increase the triceps strength you can consider the idea of a modified russian dips where you put the entire forearm on the bar rather then upper arms. considering the idea of Coach who said that this version does not provide the same benefit of russian dip...yes this is correct. std russian dip cannot be substituted by them but maybe....introduced by them.
Also look for these 2 things:
1-film yourself from the side and see if you shoulder is aligned with the elbow
2-don't let your shoulders to sag, the lats must be activated in order to hold the shoulder above the elbows.
I find it hard to picture what you mean really. If I understand right, then what you are trying to say I should do (for introduction) is that I should triceps curl my whole body with pure strength while keeping the elbows in line with the shoulders (aligned with body line). Also, that "shoulder aligned with elbow" confuses me even more because when I picture it with upper arm support, then I understand that I should "reverse cuban press" my body. I filmed one set today trying to think of the shoulder-elbow alignment but I am not at all confident in what I am doing. The dipstation is what it is and I don't know how much it impacts the form. Perhaps you can elaborate by the video and what I wrote above to guide me a bit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EylKRD6kPCs&feature=youtu.be
Rayne-William said:Click on the links below and carefully observe the overall body position differences.
Exrx.net: Chest dip- This variation primarily targets the chest.
EXrx.net- Triceps dip-This variation primarily targets the triceps.
Sorry Rayne-William but those two clips did not help clarify to me the execution of the russian dips.
alex87 said:Btw if doubts exist , reference is Coach Sommer. not me.
Yes but to get answer from 'Advanced' member chances are like 1/15 posts. From Coach like 1/50 posts. 
OK, your form is good, to increase the proficiency, think about lower your upper body backward while you hold it vertical. this means 2 things:
-pushing down with triceps
-then use the posteriore delt to slow down the movement
I'm showing here what permits to have a vertical russian dips with body that do not move forward. I do not focus on this variation early but only after a great number of normal L-russian dips in a row, maybe at least 10. this exercise is quite good for the no lean muscle up transition. for not well trained guys, specifically who not prepared the body with foundations 4 for RC and at least F2 for HBP , this can leads to elbows inflammation.
Here I'm focusing on move my shoulders backward using my triceps.
alex87 said:OK, your form is good, to increase the proficiency, think about lower your upper body backward while you hold it vertical. this means 2 things:
-pushing down with triceps
-then use the posteriore delt to slow down the movement
I'm showing here what permits to have a vertical russian dips with body that do not move forward. I do not focus on this variation early but only after a great number of normal L-russian dips in a row, maybe at least 10. this exercise is quite good for the no lean muscle up transition. for not well trained guys, specifically who not prepared the body with foundations 4 for RC and at least F2 for HBP , this can leads to elbows inflammation.
Here I'm focusing on move my shoulders backward using my triceps.
Aah nice, I think I am beginning to understand this. Just to make sure I understand everything correctly (since I specifically have a history och reoccuring elbow inflammations (, which I really want to avoid at all cost)), this is what I hear you say: at this stage I should keep going the way I am in the clip, but to keep in mind to prepare for as vertical a variation as possible, preferably going through HBP/PE11 and PE12 to gain foundational strength, then going back to HBP/PE11 to train for totally vertical body, but being careful about extra amount of warmup before the vertical variation due to high inflammation risk. Is that correctly interpreted?
alex87 said:OK, your form is good, to increase the proficiency, think about lower your upper body backward while you hold it vertical. this means 2 things:
-pushing down with triceps
-then use the posteriore delt to slow down the movement
I'm showing here what permits to have a vertical russian dips with body that do not move forward. I do not focus on this variation early but only after a great number of normal L-russian dips in a row, maybe at least 10. this exercise is quite good for the no lean muscle up transition. for not well trained guys, specifically who not prepared the body with foundations 4 for RC and at least F2 for HBP , this can leads to elbows inflammation.
Here I'm focusing on move my shoulders backward using my triceps.
Here is a video of the dip variation you are talking about.
Nino Begovic said:
Sorry Rayne-William but those two clips did not help clarify to me the execution of the russian dips.
Okay.
If the purpose of your dips is to develop your triceps. See the clip on tricep dips.
If the purpose of your dips is to develop your chest. See the clip on chest dips.
As far as Russian dips are concerned and how they develop the triceps, If you are observant enough you will notice how the ascention portion of Russian dips looks like the tricep dips more than the chest dips. Furthermore if you compare your performance of Russian dips to the tricep dips you would notice you are targeting your triceps because your overall body position matches or is similar to the overall body position of the athlete in the tricep dip clip.
I'm on these too currently. I can do 2 without rocking. Even then its not perfect. I try to compare myself to the athlete in the video. He wasn't doing them with 0 rock so why should i be concerned with that? If you are planning on being the Dip King and making that a thing on YouTube i would say worry about it and perfect the move now before you move on. As you get stronger and move thru the more difficult things you will be doing these as a warm up and they will get easier. Think L Pullups. They are a little unstable at first. But your body adjusts with time. Everyone gave you good advice especially Alex and Rayne. Lets just not lose sight of the fact that this is leading to a hollow back press. Not the Dip Olympics.
If you happen to be a perfectionist then i would definitely put more time into this and maybe even have some hands on coaching if you can get it. Its hard to explain what it should feel like. Keep up the hard work!
RyanC said:I'm on these too currently. I can do 2 without rocking. Even then its not perfect. I try to compare myself to the athlete in the video. He wasn't doing them with 0 rock so why should i be concerned with that? If you are planning on being the Dip King and making that a thing on YouTube i would say worry about it and perfect the move now before you move on. As you get stronger and move thru the more difficult things you will be doing these as a warm up and they will get easier. Think L Pullups. They are a little unstable at first. But your body adjusts with time. Everyone gave you good advice especially Alex and Rayne. Lets just not lose sight of the fact that this is leading to a hollow back press. Not the Dip Olympics.
If you happen to be a perfectionist then i would definitely put more time into this and maybe even have some hands on coaching if you can get it. Its hard to explain what it should feel like. Keep up the hard work!
Hi RyanC
Thank for commenting.
I thought I'd share a new video of the progress made in a short time thanks to, and to thank for, the tips I got in this thread.
I posted a lot of questions before because I really did not understand the movement at all. Even after a few months of trying to get it. I did not ask a lot of questions to prepare for the Dip Olympics. If I were to do the reps with the form like the CrossFit Gymnastics trainer guy on the second clip of this thread I would probably do 5x5r any day. But Dillon in the video does not do his reps like that video so I was doing something wrong. And my "rocking" wasn't looking like Dillons "rocking". If you look at Dillons L Chin-ups you will see him being very explosive, so with that in mind I though that maybe he wasn't actually rocking but appeared to be doing so because of his explosive strength??
Well anyhow, since changing my approach in the RD's I feel a lot of strength gain and also I feel it transferring to the other exercises. For example the ROM increased and steadier control att Max ROM in Pullups. =)
Here's an update of my Russian L's. This is one of my older videos I have. After this video, I did one more month of "cleaning up" any discrepancies in my form beofre I moved on to the next element.
Good stuff man. Keep it up! Just remember to watch this video when you are struggling with L Muscle ups for inspiration that its possible to overcome what seems to be impossible. 
Just getting this bit of information out there for anyone who may need it.
While I couldn't lower down to upper arm support, because my left shoulder was healing, I focused on doing standard dips while holding L-sit.
So far doing standard dips while holding L-sit has developed:
A)My pressing strength which has made lowering down to upper arm support and returning to parallel bar support a lot easier
B) Holding a "Level" L-sit through the entire range of motion easier.
L-Sit Dips stretches out the pec minor at the bottom.
This is near perfect form imo. Move on.