Korean dips. The bane of my existence.

whats the difference? the elasticity fo the pbars? the thickness? i never did them on pbars so i´m kind of suprised by this.

The PB shape is oval-ish and bigger than a barbell, so I guess the change in grip changed the dynamics somewhat. It was just a case of a minor re-learn of the technique rather than a strength issue - so don't worry if you don't have access to PBs. 

William said:

Nice that you all could work it out

I just mastered Korean Dips and will test now the undergrip version.

 

I just want to share my experience with Korean Dips in general.

First attempts has been pretty hard to get buttocks over the bar, but then i figured it out:

 

While swinging back i just straighten my lower back and legs completely and i got a really fine movement then. Before i just tried to keep my back slightly arched the whole rom, but after finding out this detail the movement was much more fluid

Not just more momentum, but it s easier to generate power from a solid body as form an arched one.

 

Hope that helps.

I found as I rise up I focus on pushing my hands forward and down so my body moves back over the bar.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread. Thanks to everyone here, I was able to go from feeling weak and clueless one session to feeling like a thousand bucks the next!

I had tried the Korean dips on my own and had not only gotten nowhere, I had pretty much decided I could not do them ever...

Reading this thread and learning that others had gone from impossible to mastery gave me the motivation to try again, and some crucial pointers to success. When I went back to try them again after, I went from one rep to two and finally to five in my final set of tries. An amazing feeling.

These are the cues that helped me the most (most are from this thread, and one I figured out for myself):

* a huge issue for me was fear/committing to the movement and the momentum going into what seemed like a vulnerable position for my shoulders; performing 5 x 10 s hold in the bottom position was the start to overcoming this barrier (I also did some German hangs to further get comfortable in this shoulder position)

* looking up and forward - my initial, unhelpful tendency was to look down and I need to remind myself of this again and again

* keeping the legs together through the movement - my initial impulse to widen them slightly (maybe for balance) strongly reduced the momentum 

* maintaining fluidity/momentum throughout the movement - commit and stay tight in the body (I do feel like I arch a bit just naturally, but I am not actively trying to arch); allow the swing and fairly high speed of the movement

* to get the glutes over the bar at the end, I found it very helpful to think "shoulders back" - this might be what to Mark Collins is "hands down and forward", but for me this focus on the shoulders worked much better

Hi everyone. I also want to say thank you to all the posters on this thread. I really struggled in the beginning with this movement. I also had difficulty locating a place to do the exercise on a regular basis so ended up being forced to hang off tall walls or banisters and sort of drag my body (major focus on the front delts when doing it that way).

Today I finally had the chance to use the right equipment. I knocked out 5X5 on my first try. Granted I have spent 6 weeks doing "wall drags" until I found a place I could do these correctly, but hey, I felt like a million bucks!

Best advice I read on this thread: push outward and not just up on the upswing. That advice alone got my butt above the bar without hitting my back. Genius!!!!

Thank you everyone!

Regarding apparatus: 

while I was fine doing single bar dips on high pullup bars, I definitely did not want to use those for the Korean dips. I have access to parallel bars sometimes, but found a Smith machine to work surprisingly well (I had thought I'd hit my head or not have enough room for my legs). I personally didn't feel that there was a big difference between those two options.

Just two weeks of work with these and some useful tips both from this thread and friends and bum, mastery done. The tip about hips pushed fordward and upward while ascending was definitive.

We will see how about undergrip ones...

The tips here have been quite helpful. 

Two things were most effective for me: 

1. progressively adding time in the bottom position holds, isometrically hanging from the bar at the bottom of the swing, and building more time to 20" holds for multiple sets,  that   did not result in any anterior shoulder or bicipital tendon  soreness.

2. Getting a spotter in front of me , with instructions how to catch your chest and break a failed drop, such that you will not butt heads. The psychologic issue and fear of planting the face , or landing clumsily and getting a distal radius fracture, from 4 feet up, was really holding me back. As others noted, letting the drop occur, and using  timing  and  momentum and  the natural reflex springing back  up, all the while remaining 'tight',was a key element, even more than building strength and confidence with the 20" holds.

I did notice that after one session of thoracic bridga stretch the underhand Korean dips I did I my warmup were much easier at the bottom of the movement.

A couple of additional useful details:

As often happens, success with a new move  not fully mastered or understood, begets subsequent failure  with alot of attendant frustration.  I am still far from consistent with korean dips, and have not yet generated 5x5 . There are still psychologic issues, since I still find I get spooked from fear of faceplanting, even though I have developed the isometric hold at the bottom, and have successfully bailed, before.

I noticed that if someone spotted me by merely standing to my left, and placing their  open  left hand with extended fingers on my sternum, and offering essentially no force, support, or momentum, (only a positional cue), I was universally successful. Sometimes i would have them place their right hand in the air behind the hamstrings  just above the knees, (for psych reasons), but this was not necessary I found. It was the forward , 'sternal'  hand that appeared critical for me. It was puzzling.

Considering  this, it's obvious  that the spotting hand cues me to keep the chest up. Keeping the chest up forces the shoulders back, tends to promote an upward gaze, and as well, the slight  bilateral arm push outwards (rather than up) on the upswing; all of these things which have been previously iterated by others on this thread, and elsewhere. 

Concentrating on chest-up has really helped me to be more consistent. If I can avoid bending the knees, I believe I will get to 5x5.

I just tried these for the first time and could not get it at all. Every time I tired my ass would hit the bar. Either it would cause me to stop completely, or if I hit mid ass, instead of running into the top I would get thrown forward off the bar.

Anyone got an idea of what I'm doing wrong?

At this point I might just be too worn out to keep trying, but I might give it a go again over the next few days to see it I can nail down the correct technique.

The big thing that helped me was improving my shoulder extension and letting my body swing under the bar. Once I could swing under the bar as I moved upwards I I push my hands down and back. Pushing down and back allowed my buttocks to move forwards and up to clear the bar.

This is one of those strange movements that takes practice. It can help to do this one more often to learn the skill of the movement.

This exercise is really good for developing shoulder strength in full extension. Something that most strength programs do not focus on.

Blair, the first thing I'd suggest you try is some holds at the bottom position prior to your attempts for reps. Both to stretch your shoulders in extension and to get comfortable mentally there, so you can perform the movement with momentum

Tempo and technique play a big role here.

the biggest mistake is starting to push upward too early. you need to push forward so that the butt can pass OVER the bar then you can push upward.

The suggestion exposed by Mark it is intelligent. developing a decent level of thoracic extension gives you the possibility to increase the rom and the basic swing under the bar. with less extension you need to move the shoulders too forward and deep in order to take advantage from the swing and this is not desirable if you are learning the movement.

as a reference use the photo below to look about how angles change with good flexibility.

Thanks for the advice, I will have a go over the next few days and see if I can make some improvement.

Alessandro Mainente said:

...

 as a reference use the photo below to look about how angles change with good flexibility.

 

extension on korean.png

I love your diagrams! :-)

Thank you for your explanations.

LateStarter@46 said:

I love your diagrams! :-)

Thank you for your explanations.

 The diagrams are turning into legend. He needs a 'MS Paint Master' title!

There are two common sticking points with Korean dips:

1) the bottom of the dip

2) getting your but past the bar nearing the top of a rep.

Evaluate and address your weaknesses regarding the above sticking points and cruise through mastery or just do the 5x5 in one set.

The bottom of the dip requires more flexibility in the pecs and shoulders compared to normal dips while getting your but past the bar requires decent arch body active flexibility.  Diagrams are great when they capture the correct concept, see how they compare with a real person doing a few Korean dips - footage I happened to have on my computer from a set of 15 I did this past summer.  

First of all, shoutout to Tompkins Square Park in those pictures:)

Secondly, I'm still trying to perfect my form on the single bar dips wrists facing away from me, but I did try to do some Korean dips once. Failed miserably. I think there's is also a lot of skill involved in this movement, especially when starting to learn it. And the fear factor was a big one for me too!

Reporting back

I worked up to doing 3 set of 20 second hangs then started trying some full reps.

At best I can string 3 reps together but not always. I count this as a huge improvement, it allows me to get a bunch of practice reps in and once I can consistently string reps together I'll start on s sets and reps progression.

3 hours ago, Blair Norwood said:

Reporting back

I worked up to doing 3 set of 20 second hangs then started trying some full reps.

At best I can string 3 reps together but not always. I count this as a huge improvement, it allows me to get a bunch of practice reps in and once I can consistently string reps together I'll start on s sets and reps progression.

Well done. Patience pays; after sufficient strength is built this is all active flexibility, not something that comes overnight, but something that is matchless in injury prevention. Shoulder extension can be tricky for adults to develop and this element is a lot more complex than other pressing so far. Stay the course and it'll come under control before you know it.

For me flexibility was a big problem which a realized when i just started to try them. I wish a focused more on the even on PE1 because i would have mastered it a lot quicker.

- I added a lot of stretching in the bottom of the korean dip position in my sessions. I felt that shoulder extension with straight arm and bent arm are a bit different and i needed to stretch both.

- Started doing really deep bench dips + palms undergrip. Both reps and bottom holds. These i still keep in my training because they serve as a good warmup and stretch.

For me I'm noticing that rather than pure flexibility the issue is strength at the end of the range of motion. I can get into the bottom position as far as range of motion, but there's no way I can push myself up from there. I'm trying the "hang protocol" and I'm also working on Russian dips, just to avoid losing all my poverty dipping strength. We're all going to make it one day! 

Several weeks and sharing frustration…read through all this and nothing working…

i can hang at bottom I can sit at top. I can even lower with butt touching bar but even the sniff of a swing will throw me forwards 

On 4/2/2022 at 3:18 PM, Duncan Lally said:

Several weeks and sharing frustration…read through all this and nothing working…

i can hang at bottom I can sit at top. I can even lower with butt touching bar but even the sniff of a swing will throw me forwards 

HI Duncan, have you ever posted a video attempt?