How to achieve the russian dip? Technique and tips

[Daniel Jorgensen]

I know the books has a small section on the russian dip, and I'm very surpriced that it is catagorized as easier than a bulgarian dip.

Well, maybe it just me and my tradition for being less talented in lat-requiring exercises, but I have a hard time with the russian dip. I can perform a few singles with a large kip.

My question is: Should I keep doing them with kip, or should I merely focus on doing strict negatives focusing on more muscle, less momentum?

[Blairbob]

I would prefer negatives or band assisted rather than a kip. It depends on how much kip we are talking about.

One thing that helped me a lot with russian dips was keeping the bars wider than I thought. I thought they would be easier with narrower bars and they weren't...for me.

[Razz]

A kip is definately not the way to go, because that will still leave you with little strength from the starting position. Rather negatives or band assisted or even better hand assisted..

[Daniel Jorgensen]

thanks

[Joshua Naterman]

Watch my video on the Russian dips. I explain how you basically want to only practice the range of motion that allows you to successfully complete a rep, so if your elbows stop 4 inches from the bars, that's fine! The only thing I want to add to the video is that the video shows the Russian dip stopping when the elbows hit the bars. That's just a step along the way. Once you can do that, you would start sliding your elbows out to the sides and start bringing your upper arms across the PB. Again, you wouldn't try to go all the way to upper arm support right away. You would want to pace your progress just like the rest of the Russian dip.

These are a lot harder on the triceps and wrists/grip than the Bulgarians for certain, but the Bulgarians are a step towards the Iron Cross whereas these are not. Maybe that's part of the classification. There is also the fact that many of us may be doing the Bulgarian dips wrong. I know that we were ALL doing Bulgarian rows wrong at the last Seminar! Coach had us specifically do them correctly while he watched and corrected us, and it turns them into a completely different exercise.

[cccp22]

Watch my video on the Russian dips. I explain how you basically want to only practice the range of motion that allows you to successfully complete a rep, so if your elbows stop 4 inches from the bars, that's fine! The only thing I want to add to the video is that the video shows the Russian dip stopping when the elbows hit the bars. That's just a step along the way. Once you can do that, you would start sliding your elbows out to the sides and start bringing your upper arms across the PB. Again, you wouldn't try to go all the way to upper arm support right away. You would want to pace your progress just like the rest of the Russian dip.

These are a lot harder on the triceps and wrists/grip than the Bulgarians for certain, but the Bulgarians are a step towards the Iron Cross whereas these are not. Maybe that's part of the classification. There is also the fact that many of us may be doing the Bulgarian dips wrong. I know that we were ALL doing Bulgarian rows wrong at the last Seminar! Coach had us specifically do them correctly while he watched and corrected us, and it turns them into a completely different exercise.

*******By the way on an off subject if one were doing 4 sessions a week(m,t,thr,fri) is it possible to do 4 diffrent types of dips(russian one day,bulgarian the next day, xr 3rd, pb l-sit last)

Brandon Green

[Joshua Naterman]

Anything is possible, I mean honestly that may not have been the right wording. Is it a good idea? I don't know. You'd have to balance that with an equal amount of scapular work. Doing four actual workouts based on these dips is a bit much, I think. Look at the WOD schedules, and watch as those of us who do them get stronger, and stronger, and stronger. You'll see what it takes and how it works.

I think it's certainly possible to do one set of 3-5 reps, since I'm doing that with several exercises right now as part of my warm up, but you'd only want to concentrate on the dips that don't get much carryover from other exercises, which is pretty much just the Russian dips.

If you remember, you're also supposed to be doing warm up sets before the WOD (or whatever workout you are doing) work sets start, so that would be the best time do do something like this: one set of 3-5 PB dips, one set of russian dip work(same reps), one set of PB L dips(same reps, assuming that's not close to your max, as these are quite difficult), and then the WODs. It is, in my opinion, something of a waste to do extra bulgarians since we do them so often as our work sets anyhow. I could certainly be missing something in that opinion, but that's my opinion as of today. That scheme is assuming that those exercises are quite easy for 3 reps. You should not be using high intensity on something that you are trying to do so often.

Anyone with a different opinion, this is a great time to point out anything I am missing!

[Daniel Jorgensen]

Watch my video on the Russian dips. I explain how you basically want to only practice the range of motion that allows you to successfully complete a rep, so if your elbows stop 4 inches from the bars, that's fine! The only thing I want to add to the video is that the video shows the Russian dip stopping when the elbows hit the bars. That's just a step along the way. Once you can do that, you would start sliding your elbows out to the sides and start bringing your upper arms across the PB. Again, you wouldn't try to go all the way to upper arm support right away. You would want to pace your progress just like the rest of the Russian dip.

These are a lot harder on the triceps and wrists/grip than the Bulgarians for certain, but the Bulgarians are a step towards the Iron Cross whereas these are not. Maybe that's part of the classification. There is also the fact that many of us may be doing the Bulgarian dips wrong. I know that we were ALL doing Bulgarian rows wrong at the last Seminar! Coach had us specifically do them correctly while he watched and corrected us, and it turns them into a completely different exercise.

Thanks! Funny, I never thought of just doing partials Good point!

[cccp22]

Watch my video on the Russian dips. I explain how you basically want to only practice the range of motion that allows you to successfully complete a rep, so if your elbows stop 4 inches from the bars, that's fine! The only thing I want to add to the video is that the video shows the Russian dip stopping when the elbows hit the bars. That's just a step along the way. Once you can do that, you would start sliding your elbows out to the sides and start bringing your upper arms across the PB. Again, you wouldn't try to go all the way to upper arm support right away. You would want to pace your progress just like the rest of the Russian dip.

These are a lot harder on the triceps and wrists/grip than the Bulgarians for certain, but the Bulgarians are a step towards the Iron Cross whereas these are not. Maybe that's part of the classification. There is also the fact that many of us may be doing the Bulgarian dips wrong. I know that we were ALL doing Bulgarian rows wrong at the last Seminar! Coach had us specifically do them correctly while he watched and corrected us, and it turns them into a completely different exercise.

********** Ever considered doing these from a plank position or elevated position as a progression?

Brandon Green

[Joshua Naterman]

Absolutely, within reason. I've honestly found that doing them in an L with feet supported is the best progression, because it is easily scalable. This does tend to work better with the false grip pull up, but it absolutely works fairly well with the russian dip component as well. You can actually see that on one of my WOD videos, I use a foot support in an L for assisted muscle ups. Now I'm back to repping them out unassisted, which is a very good feeling. It is quite amazing how quickly you can build up if you just take your time.

[David Gardner 1]

Just wondering, would these be a decent progression for developing russian dips?

f_e32bcHcxc

I was working on partial russian dips from your video Slizzardman and muscle up rows and got a bit over enthusiastic I think because it left me with pretty sore elbows for awhile. So I'm going to take it much easier and not do anything that causes my elbows pain.

How long does it take for joint strength to catch up?

[Joshua Naterman]

Not impressed. I just got down and compared them with close grip push ups AKA diamonds AKA triceps push ups and there is no comparison. These are a very small ROM and while I won't go so far as to say they are TOTAL crap, they are definitely partial crap. You will be much better served to practice diamonds and slowly add weight. I wouldn't bother adding weight until you're doing 15-20 reps 3-4 times a week for 6-8 weeks, just to give the elbow ligaments and the tricep tendons a chance to get stronger. Take small, consistent steps forward with your volume until you hit this point and then hang out there just as recommended. After this period of time add about 5% of total load and repeat the cycle.

This is a slow process, but super strength is built slowly. There are no drugs that can bring you the kind of strength we build here on this forum. You have to have the patience to let your body grow into its strength on its own natural timeline. That will very quickly mean doing 8-12 week SSC on just about everything, because you will reach your connective tissue limits within a year if you're training consistently. At that point you have to go by the connective tissue, which means that you will feel like you aren't working hard enough for at least half of each SSC generally speaking.

[David Gardner 1]

Haha, fair enough

Thanks for the advice about the tricep pushup progressions. I was actually looking for videos of those on youtube when I came across the above clip.

Thanks again for all your advice (all over the forums) it's been a great help!

[Mark O'Shea]

... You will be much better served to practice diamonds and slowly add weight. I wouldn't bother adding weight until you're doing 15-20 reps 3-4 times a week for 6-8 weeks, just to give the elbow ligaments and the tricep tendons a chance to get stronger. Take small, consistent steps forward with your volume until you hit this point and then hang out there just as recommended. After this period of time add about 5% of total load and repeat the cycle.

Slizzardman;

This may be taken out of context but I question the number of reps you cite prior to increasing the load and thereby building tendon/ligament strength. It has been previously listed within the forum to use a lower rep count for strength/ligament strengthening. Why the increased amount? Or am I confusing the two? Wouldn't the lower rep count at tempo over an SSC of 8 - 12 weeks accomplish the same goal?

[Joshua Naterman]

... You will be much better served to practice diamonds and slowly add weight. I wouldn't bother adding weight until you're doing 15-20 reps 3-4 times a week for 6-8 weeks, just to give the elbow ligaments and the tricep tendons a chance to get stronger. Take small, consistent steps forward with your volume until you hit this point and then hang out there just as recommended. After this period of time add about 5% of total load and repeat the cycle.

Slizzardman;

This may be taken out of context but I question the number of reps you cite prior to increasing the load and thereby building tendon/ligament strength. It has been previously listed within the forum to use a lower rep count for strength/ligament strengthening. Why the increased amount? Or am I confusing the two? Wouldn't the lower rep count at tempo over an SSC of 8 - 12 weeks accomplish the same goal?

Question away!

This rep scheme is for two reasons: There is nothing else that we do that places such an extreme angular stress on a tendon as the muscle up transition. The multiplier is enormous. For this reason, and honestly through personal experience, building up to 20 reps first with BW (which seriously isn't that big of a deal, you don't need to run consistent SSC just add a rep when it gets easy at whatever you are doing) and steady stating the 20 reps allows some very nice initial adaptations. This is geared towards building an elbow joint that can handle a no-lean muscle up, which is insanely hard to do. I have honestly only seen one, and that was andreas aguilar in 1991. I am quite positive he's not the only one but it is seriously a true feat of strength and joint conditioning.

After that is accomplished I don't see any issues with continuing 15-20 reps adding 5 lbs at a time until you're at a good 130% BW total, so 30% BW added. That will take time, obviously, but you will build an invincible elbow. For such a simple method I can't imagine anyone being upset about that.

If you only intend to do 2-3 MU at a time then maybe 5-10 reps would be fine, but I want to have truly indestructable elbows. The higher reps discourage upping the load too soon.

Tendon/ligament strength is not a function of high reps or low reps, it's about systematically and slowly raising the force the joint is exposed to at a rate that allows full adaptation. When using higher loads and lower reps you have a lower margin for error. This is very similar to the 60s requirement for planche work up to and including advanced tuck. Disregard at your peril!

[Gerald Mangona]

Not impressed. I just got down and compared them with close grip push ups AKA diamonds AKA triceps push ups and there is no comparison. These are a very small ROM and while I won't go so far as to say they are TOTAL crap, they are definitely partial crap. You will be much better served to practice diamonds and slowly add weight.

Slizz...for some of us who don't have the ligament strength, wouldn't this be a good way to scale it? I'll tell you if I do 15 close grip pushups even once a week, my elbows will get injured from overuse. So I've been just doing them up against a wall for right now so I can get a nice prehab rep count of 25 without blowing my joints out.

Perhaps the "atomic tricep blaster pushup" (eye roll)...might be a good way for me to condition the joints and work my way up to the diamond pushups?

[Joshua Naterman]

HAHAHA maybe, it is always a good idea to start with a known good ROM and slowly increase to full!

Just don't say that name out loud unless your hair is golden and glowing!

[Mark O'Shea]

Slizz;

I've seen that Aguilar video and it's very impressive. Thanks for your insights and response.

[David Gardner 1]

The muscle up in that Aguilar video is pretty impressive!

Could I ask please, what's the best way to include these if someone is doing the WODs? Do these on the off days, or maybe as part of the warmup?

Thanks!

[Joshua Naterman]

David: Personally I feel like this stuff could either go in the warm up OR at the end of the workout, I mean it's not supposed to be hard. The whole point is to slowly build up to having real strength without being near your max, so you keep it easy to moderately challenging. I don't think it's a good idea to put anything into direct strength training until you have built a good bit of strength in the joints involved, preferably enough to where the full movement is no longer any more difficult than the prehab you are doing.

That may sound backwards, but I am making enormous strides forward with what seem to be fairly simple concepts like this that may seem backwards on the surface. Great strength is build 1 ounce at a time.

[David Gardner 1]

Thanks a lot Slizzardman, very helpful as always!