I'm going to include a picture because this could mean a lot of things.
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First off, if you are in a fully-equipped gym surrounded by equipment and weights of all sorts and sizes yet you choose to do calisthenics that could be done anywhere you are a bell-end to begin with. If you are in a busy gym you are also an asshole because you are taking up about 3 times as much space as you should be and also occupying a bench, which is one of the main things that people in the gym use.
That's 2 reasons to stop doing this exercise but there is also a physiological reason why you should stop doing this as well.
You are causing undue stress on your shoulders in a very unnatural position
Think about it for a second: Is there any real life situation where this motion would be used in lieu of some other, more efficient method of getting up? I can't think of one. If you were getting up from a sitting or even lying down position there are a myriad of ways in which a person could get to standing without using this motion. Therefore, our bodies through the wonders of evolution never really developed a reason to be in this awkward position.
In extreme situations with bodybuilders who really need to do a little more research and will almost certainly have pain issues later in life you will see someone using 2 benches for these and place a weight or even a stack of weights on their legs in order to make the movement even more difficult.
Now I"m not trying to say that guy isn't in good shape, although he should probably do a few leg days here and there judging by his arm to thigh ratio, but even though he doesn't know it now, he is creating shoulder problems for himself in the future.
The the bottom part of this motion you create a huge amount of stress and strain on the front of your shoulders. The silly part about this is that the entire purpose of this exercise is to work out your triceps and I don't know how much time you spend in a gym, but there are usually a TON of different machines and exercises that a person can do to work out their tri's.
Instead of being a fool and causing damage to yourself, try these exercises instead
- cable pulldown (using a bar or the rope)
- face-smashers (lying down and lowering a bar or weights towards your face)
- close grip bench press
I'm not trying to tell you what to do and since I am a normie I am quite certain that there are many people out there that are in far better shape than I am. I lift conservatively and with a purpose and after having done some research because I know some older guys that have chronic problems because access to information of this sort wasn't so easy "back in the day." If you are doing bench dips seriously reconsider because you could be setting yourself up for shoulder pain / injury in the future.
Now get out there and get some work done!
I think most people struggle with dips due to a lack of flexibility in their chest and shoulders. Too much time sitting at a desk combined with too many heavy chest days.
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Here's another exercise I have done at home that you are telling me is bad. It is part of the '7 minute' workout I was doing. I get that it is not a very natural movement, but will it do much actual damage with body weight? Are chin-ups okay? We have a bar that I try to use every day. Not that I can do many reps.
well I only find out these things from groups that I belong to and various information i receive from people that are personal trainers. The part that makes the most sense to me is that it is a very unnatural movement that there aren't very many situations that i can imagine that a movement that a bench dip does would ever occur naturally. Chin ups or pullups for example involve a movement that throughout the evolution of humanity would have happened all the time.
I don't pretend to be the origin of any of these ideas, i just know that i've seen people that did the "wrong" exercises and appeared to be in fantastic shape for many years... now they are older and they are paying for these mistakes that they didn't even realize were mistakes because we didn't have the technology at the time to determine that they were in fact, mistakes. If there are other options to work the same muscle groups I don't see any particular reason to continue doing one that there is evidence it causes chronic pain later in life.
There is so much advice online and some is contradictory, so it can be hard to know what is good or bad. Just have to pick who you trust. I'll be considering which exercises feel unnatural in future. Cheers.
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well crap, i do this every now and then but you know what? It does feel kind of strange when i do them. I bet there is a lot to the statement of it being potentially harmful to ya.
well I probably wouldn't have known about it if i wasn't related to a very well respected and highly sought-after personal trainer in NYC. All of my info comes to me in a roundabout way from her. When I hear that people pay her up to $500 an hour for personal sessions I'm thinking she probably knows what she is talking about.