Dips - Which progression while training ring support hold?

Hey guys, so my form with XR Rings is pretty bad. I thought it was good, but then I learned that my grip was wrong (forearms touching rings) and that I needed to be hollow.

So i'm backtracking to achieve a proper 60s ring support with no contact between forearms and rings. I think the last time I tested my max i could hold 25-30s with good form and minimal shaking. After that my form degrades pretty rapidly.

Anyway, my question is about Dips and what progression I should work on in the meantime. Should I back off of Ring Dips until I have a really good ring support? I don't have the BtGB book with me at the moment, but i'm pretty sure Coach says that without a proper ring support that further work in ring dips is just going to spin wheels. I would back off on dips back to parallel bars, but i don't have proper parallel bars. I only have chairs/benches with dumbbell grips. This works, but I can't get full range of motion without tucking my legs.

I've performed rings with a proper grip support, and I don't feel stable enough to actually work it with a good range of motion. So i feel like my options (while I build a proper ring support) are to either continue with ring dips less than proper grip (forearms touching) or just back up further to PB dips.

Any thoughts? My apologies if this a little rambling.

EDIT: this topic might be better suited to the ring strength forum.

Pushups on the rings!

of course there would be a third option that I hadn't considered.

I am already doing ring pushups and FX PPPu on my horizontal pressing day. Are you suggesting that I take out dips all together?

Thanks for your help!

mhodges said:

of course there would be a third option that I hadn't considered.

I am already doing ring pushups and FX PPPu on my horizontal pressing day. Are you suggesting that I take out dips all together?

Thanks for your help!

If you don't have the facilities to do the appropiate variation, it's probably better to take it out completely rather than do a variation you cannot safely do.

Depending on where you work out, it may be possible to get two chairs to do dips on, though.

I would do ring dips with band assisting you

At the top of each dip you should be turning out into support. If your dip is stable and good and it is just the support then you could do your dips and work your support holds at the end of the set, slowly increasing your turn out. If you cannot hold a full turn out then you cannot build it. Start with less turn out and slowly increase it as you get more stable. It's not all or nothing. Do what you CAN and over time increase the difficulty.

Make sense?

If you can do the dips PROPERLY while the forearms are touching the straps then you should start off that way. By properly, I mean that your shoulders feel pretty much the same as they do during PB or dip bar or chair dips.

If not, you have two options:

1) Do partial ROM XR dips, only going as low as you can go properly. This may be 3 inches or 10 inches, who knows. It will improve over time.

2) Keep the dips on chairs, parallel bars or dip bars for the time being and just use the rings for developing your support.

After you have full ROM dips, you can start lessening the strap support by slowly keeping the rings more and more turned out, and perhaps keeping your hands slightly wider as well. This is a gradual process.

The main purpose of the no-strap requirement is simple: You should not progress to the next step until your form is perfect. It is impossible to start out something new perfectly in full ROM, which is why you will need to determine whether or not you can perform a smaller ROM on the rings with proper form and rings perhaps turned slightly in at first. It can take a little while to really build good ring dips. It's worth doing, because they develop very stable shoulders when done correctly before moving on.

There's a ton of good advice in this thread, so my suggestion is that you take the advice that seems best to YOU and see what your results are over the next month.

Just make sure you're doing hollow dips for at least half of your sets, and that if you are not hollow it is on purpose. Over time work on using the straps less, which will happen as you turn the straps out little by little.

This works, but I can't get full range of motion without tucking my legs.

Not the end of the world. I have to do them the same on low chairs.

Another option is to setup a chair under/behind the rings to place the instep of your feet on as a partial assist.

Joshua Naterman said:

If you can do the dips PROPERLY while the forearms are touching the straps then you should start off that way. By properly, I mean that your shoulders feel pretty much the same as they do during PB or dip bar or chair dips.

If not, you have two options:

1) Do partial ROM XR dips, only going as low as you can go properly. This may be 3 inches or 10 inches, who knows. It will improve over time.

2) Keep the dips on chairs, parallel bars or dip bars for the time being and just use the rings for developing your support.

Thanks for everyone's great advice. Most appreciated. I will probably go for a mix of the two options. Something like:

3 sets of dips on chairs/pb bars.

1 set of XR dips with a partial ROM.

XR ring support work.

Again thanks for everyone's help. I tend to over analyze things to death.