How high should dip bars be?

Dips are one of the best bodyweight push exercises. The movement is simple and doesn’t require any specialized equipment. Dips are great to build upper body mass and strength because they engage most of the upper body muscles, especially the chest and triceps. Although the movement is simple by slightly modifying the technique, you can change which muscles are involved. That’s a great way to focus on a specific muscle. To do dips at home, you will need dip bars. In this article, you will learn how to choose the right height for your dip bars.

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Too low dip bars

Dip bars are too low when you’re touching the ground with your knees bent while doing dips. The inability to do a full rep of motion will slow your progress. The lower part of the dip is the most challenging. Because it engages the muscles the most, it’s best to build your muscle strength and mass. Also, an uneven increase in strength can cause injury. For example, if you start with weighted dips after only doing half reps. If you go too low and don’t have strength in that range of motion, you can get injured. The last thing is much less choice of variations.

Ideally, the height of the dip bar should be high enough to have straight legs in the entire range of motion. However, it’s enough if you don’t touch the ground with your knees bent.

Best height for you

It’s quite simple to find a suitable height for you. Just measure the distance from the ground to the shoulders, if you want to do dips with straight legs. Otherwise, measure the distance from the knees to the shoulders.

For a man, 177cm (5,8 feet) shoulder height is about 145cm (4.7 feet). And from the knees to shoulders its about 95cm (3,1 foot)

most of the dip bars are above 90cm (3 feet) so it doesn’t matter what you buy unless you’re very tall. If you measure the method above, there always will be some more space. So if the bar is a little lower than your measurement it’s no big deal.

Alternative

Gymnastic rings can be used in many ways, one of them being dips. You can train with them everywhere. They are very small and light – approximately 2kg (4 lbs), and fit easily in a backpack. With rings, you can do dips in many different variations, and you can set different heights and grips, which adds many possibilities for your training.