Programming a ring dip into your athletes or gym members programs can cause a lot of people to miss class. Ring dips are hard and require a lot of patience, practice and time training. You’ve got to build the movements and patterns. It’s really easy to look at a Crossfit athlete performing ring dips on social media and think “how did they do that”?
Well they did it by following a proper ring dip progression program over time.
Get Better At Push Ups
You’ve got to get very efficient at doing push ups. I know it sounds basic but a lot of people burn out quickly. Focus on higher endurance reps when push up training or at the end of a super set with other upper body pressing movements.
You should be as eager to perform push ups on your knees as you are to use a Sling Shot training tool or as you are by adding a tactical weight vest.
Be A Dip Monster.
Dips are essential for any type of upper body movements. They just are. They’ll teach you proper shoulder stability while packing on size in your shoulders and triceps.
As the same with push ups, start adding different elements into your dip training from using a Sling shot or weight vest to using resistance bands to help you improve your endurance. Dips are important.
In terms of a ring dip progression, I think pausing at specific elbow ranges of motion is critical for improving your ring dip capacity.
Add In Stability.
In both the push up and dip you should start adding some type of movement and instability factor. For the push up, add ring dips in to increase instability and in the dip,kipping pull ups are popular with a lot of Crossfit athletes.
Get On The Rings
At some point you need to get on the rings but not perform a full rep yet. I favor two different training systems.
I like band assisted ring dips in the same way that I like band assisted dips. You’ll gradually learn the range of motion while finding out your weak points in the ring dip.
Once you found your weakness then you can perform partial reps in that range of motion as well as on the top and bottom. A lot of athletes hurt themselves on ring dips because they do not get accustomed to the range of motion needed to adequately perform the movement.
(Check Out Our Other Ring Dip Progression Guide)
Do the Dip
Now that you’ve got yourself used to the required range of motion, it’s time to try your first ring dip. Get up there and give it a try. If you fail, go back through the steps of this ring dip progression program and find your weak points.