Difficulty: Easy
Impact Level: Normal
Target Body Parts: upper back, chest, shoulders, glutes
How to do Tricep Dips
Back to ExercisesInstructions
Start by sitting on the floor, with your legs out in front of you and place your hands on the floor, underneath your shoulders, with your fingers pointing towards your feet. Then, bending your knees, draw your feet in towards your hips until the soles of your feet are flat on the floor. Push down into your hands and feet to pick your hips up off the floor.
From this top position, bend your elbows, whilst pointing them straight back behind you, to lower your hips towards the floor without sitting down. Straighten your arms to return to the top position. From the top position to the bottom position and back up is one repetition.
Try to avoid letting your elbows flare out to the sides. If you find this a difficult position to be in, you can perform the same movement with your hands on a bench or a step.
How to make Tricep Dips easier
Try lowering yourself from a higher starting position by having your hands on a stable bench or step, with your legs bent in and feet flat to the floor so you can push with your legs to assist the arms a little bit. Also try our Lying Triceps Lifts exercise to build up strength to help you tackle this one.
How to make Tricep Dips more challenging
Having your hands on a bench or a step, or even one hand on two separate chairs with a gap between them for you to lower down in between, will enable you to perform this exercise with great range of movement, which makes it harder. From there you can try it with legs straight, and then with legs elevated.
Another great way to target the triceps is by progressing to Diamond Push-ups.
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