How do I do dips without rotator cuff pain

Question

I want to be able to train dips, with a goal of moving to ring dips, then muscle ups. My problem is that when I do regular dips, or machine assist dips, I get a high, consistsent level of shoulder pain. I think the mechanism of the injury is that my shoulders rotate internally slightly, possibly because I'm trying to recruit the wrong muscles in the movement, and I get a lot of pain in my rotator cuff.

I think its also notable that, while most people describe dips as a tricep exercise, I only feel the strain in my chest muscles. I've tried to do dips on a dip assist machine, but I have the same shoulder problems regardless of the amount of assistance I use (my theory is that the dip assist machine may be forcing me into an unnatural posture, which encourages bad technique). When I try to do dips purely as a tricep exercise (by holding my upper arms in a fixed angle relative to my upper body, and rocking forward), my triceps aren't nearly strong enough to handle the exercise.

My shoulders tend to be fairly prone to rotator cuff problems. Any exercise that's usually considered "bad for shoulders" is definitely bad for mine. Has anyone out there experienced anything similar? Has anyone worked through it?

My question is:

• do I have a specific combination of bad dip technique and muscle weakness that needs to be addressed, and once it is, I'll be able to dip safely OR
• should someone who's prone to rotator cuff problems just stay away from dips entirely, and stick to benchpresses, and standing presses (neither of which cause me any shoulder pain)

I'm 6'4", 181 lbs. I can bench a pair of 60lbs dumbbells for 3 sets of 8, and lateral dumbbell raises with 15lbs, but other than that, haven't historically done much pressing

Answer 1

I also have had varying levels of rotator cuff pain over the years. Most of the time for me its been from bad technique on bar bell bench press, or dumbbell shoulder/bench press movements. There are many ways you can isolate and train (very carefully!) these muscles. I have always found a pain free shoulder strengthening exercise to be the seated barbell military press. I don't really like the smith machine version but that can be a way to start and learn the movement. Give it a try and see if it works for you. I've built up the strength in my shoulders substantially doing seated military press and rotator cuff pain has diminished and largely disappeared.

I've also used this method sporadically throughout the years. I must admit I've been a bit lazy with it though but see how you go with it. Its the one generally recommended by most personal trainers whenever you mention rotator cuffs.

More to your question on dips, they can be a bit tricky as muscles utilised can change (as you've identified) depending on your posture during the movement. If you want to strengthen your triceps for dips, I would recommend replicating a similar (but more controlled movement) in the rope pushdown.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

See "Triceps" dips completely alleviate shoulder pain? regarding shoulder pain on dips. My advice is to maintain humeral external rotation (not sure what the official name is) whenever doing any exercises either pulling or pushing the humerus "upwards" into the shoulder (glenohumeral) joint (such as dips and pullups). Also use your traps to stabilize your shoulder blades as needed for these well.

Answer 3

Do dips as you normally do, but with a resistance band held between both hands hanging down between with your shins on top. That is, lower yourself onto the band.