These cues instantly improved my dips

Given my history of left shoulder instability, dips have always been scary. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been facing that fear. This is my 4th or 5th session that features dips. I’ll be hitting them 2x/week for the next 6-8 weeks at least.
Now with respect to my performance, I notice a tendency to orient my upper thorax to the left. I do this in the frontal and transverse planes. This actually limits my access to extension and internal rotation on the left shoulder.
When looking at my static alignment, you’ll see an upper thorax that likes to orient to the left in the frontal plane. You’ll see a head that is usually neutral. Neutral head on a left side bent thorax = right cervical side bend.
A head and neck in right side bend will often have difficulty transferring force into the left neck and upper thorax.
So I’m simply reverse engineering my position. I’m thinking about expanding into the right scapular area in my right upper thorax and slightly side bending my thorax to the right. I’m simultaneously clamping the left neck down a bit while holding it in neutral.
The difference subjectively was night and day. The leverage on my second and third sets was crazy. I went from barely eeking out 2 sets of 10 and a set of 8 to 3 sets of 10 with much better technique and an additional set of 8.
The combination of intention with respect to position and exposure has really delivered.
I firmly believe that I’ll be able to load these up with a weight belt within a few weeks. From there, I expect an increase in neck and shoulder stability on the left.
My goal for is this to translate to improved performance with benching and pull-ups. I’ve been stuck at around 185 on bench press and am hoping this can help me break through and maybe hit 225 by the end of the year.
Of course, I’ll integrate these cues across multiple contexts as well to reinforce the motor learning aspects.
If you want to understand your own body and figure out your best cues, join the waitlist for Total Body Restoration.
#personaltrainer #trainer #upperbodyworkout

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