The Dip Station... and why you NEED one in your garage gym

A dip station is a device that hooks to a squat rack, like our Commercial Squat Rack with Pull-up Bar (the beauty you see in the video in the only free gym in the United States… the Fringe Sport gym). The dip station sits on the rack by hooking the pin through the holes in the post on the rack, just like our J-cups or safety spotter arms. This dip station allows you to do exactly what the name says: dips.

Dips are an exercise (so gracefully and impressively performed by PK in the above video) that works the chest and triceps. Dips are commonly programmed with pull-ups, and a lot of times are used as a pull-up or scaling accessory. You might do a workout where the same number of pull-ups and dips are prescribed, or maybe 1.5 dips to pull-ups, or even as the scale accessory (banded, jumping, negative) to get the same range of muscles working that would in an unscaled pull-up.

Dips are often easier than pull-ups, so to make dips harder, athletes will often weigh them down. What that means is that they’re adding resistance one of a few different ways:

1. Grab a kettlebell, loop one foot through the handle, and the other foot over top to secure the weight.  
2. Wear a weight vest
3. Wear a chain around your neck
4. Attach a weight to your belt to add on extra weight

To make dips easier, there’s a great way to modify the exercise: 

First, set your dip station up a tad higher than you normally would - just under shoulder height is what you’re looking for here. Just like a jumping pull-up with a negative, we can do the same with dips. You’ll jump up to push and reach full arm extension, and bring yourself back down slowly with emphasis on the negative portion of each rep. 

This practice with a jump and a negative is also great for pull-ups, like we mentioned before. The same rules apply: jump to reach full contraction and bring your chin over the bar, and slowly bring yourself back down with special emphasis on the negative. 

Another way to make dips easier to take away some of the resistance by using a band. You can start with something like the X-heavy orange band, and as you progress and get better at dips, reduce the band size until you don’t need it anymore. 

There’s two ways to utilize the band: you can either finagle your way into sitting on top of it, allowing the band to sit just under the glutes and offer some help on the extension, or you can bring either both (easier) or just one (more difficult) knee on top of the band to modify the amount of help you’re getting from the band. 

Get yourself a dip station, throw these dip and pull-up practices into your accessory routine and workouts, and we can guarantee some pull-up or dip progress, as long as you’re putting in the work.

Let us know in the comments below your favorite dip workout or accessory. Have your own dip station in your garage gym? Send us a photo or video of you using it and getting your gainz team@fringesport.com!