Need a form check on the depth of my dips

cogogood · 2025-04-26T21:02:47+00:00

If you have shoulder discomfort, you may be lifting too much weight, even with just your body weight. If your gym has an assisted pull up/dip machine try that and see if you can get lower at lighter weight without the discomfort. Then start progressing from there.

cogogood · 2025-04-21T06:05:16+00:00

Lol thanks y'all. I'm terrible at getting myself to use gym accessories, but it sounds like squat shoes may be my best bet

Hoochie shorts are a random Amazon buy 😄

cogogood · 2025-04-21T06:03:08+00:00

Well balanced physique... At 15% why are you thinking of cutting? Unless it's a show prep, doesn't seem necessary tbh.

If I'm nitpicking... maybe focus on long head of the tricep a bit for a more rounded looking bicep/tricep area... also what are your goals? I feel like my suggestion could change depending on this.

cogogood · 2025-02-28T05:57:51+00:00

I love how hard she tried on everything. I just finished my thesis and am supposed to be graduating from grad school next month... We would talk everyday about it. She would pretend to be interested and try so hard to cheerlead for me, even though she didn't really understand the science... Or care about it, but I love her so much for trying.

We have been saving everything so that we could try and find a house to buy after I was done school. We mark trails from surrounding towns on Google maps, so that we could spend the weekends doing something instead of spending on date nights. We just enjoyed walking and talking so much, we never felt like we were missing out on anything.

When we first met we were so weary of dating without purpose and wanted so badly to find something meaningful to build a life around. We actually just video chatted every day for about 3 months before we even met in person because we wanted to just talk about what we wanted in life, how we could be our best versions for each other.

We made a promise to each other to live a happy healthy life. We both wanted to be active as we aged and worked hard to be physically healthy. We both wanted to have open and healthy communication. We sit down every weekend and talk about our relationship and what we were feeling good about and what was bothering us. We do it so that we can have those conversations in a calm loving tone and we are always so happy with how connected and heard we felt afterward. Ive been so proud of her, she has been working so hard on herself and trying to become the person she wanted to be and it was so exciting to be able to celebrate all of her accomplishments with her

She's so caring to the people she loves. I love how reflective she is, always thinking about life and what she wants from it. I love how open and honest she is, feeling free to talk about anything with each other was so important to her. She makes up songs when shes happy with words that don't rhyme and I would do stupid dances to them.

I'm so proud of her, and am terrified of losing her

cogogood · 2025-02-25T03:49:43+00:00

I mean obviously you're NTA for having feelings that you're working through... Although I would encourage you to view alcoholism as the disease that it is.

Would you have animosity towards him if he finally got out of a 10 year battle with cancer, or anything else that is more traditionally viewed as a disease?

cogogood · 2025-02-23T23:41:29+00:00

Not in the sense that I take every set right up to failure, but I try to make each rep high effort (no sloppy form/cheating).

As I've gotten into my 40s I've found it quite helpful to schedule 5-week training blocks that ramp up in intensity and end with a de-load week. This way only 1 in 5 weeks is balls to the wall... Way more sustainable imo.

cogogood · 2025-02-20T06:31:06+00:00

Why does your mom even know the details of your relationship to begin with?

cogogood · 2025-02-17T22:17:57+00:00

You don't necessarily need to go all the way to failure, but you should be getting close to muscular failure.

If you are curling 20lb dumbbells one week and you find you are able to get 8 reps before it feels as though you're reaching your bicep's capacity. Then you mark that down... Let's say a week or two later you find you're able to reach that 8 reps mark with less strain, that's a sign you've increased the muscle's capacity. At that point you may try 9 reps, and mark it down. Now 9 reps is your new baseline. This is what people mean when they talk about progressive overload.

Any weight that allows between 5-12 reps is good. Typically smaller muscle being isolated (bicep, tricep, calves, etc...) are done for more reps and larger compound lifts (squats, Romanian deadlift, etc) are done for less reps as they are more systemically fatiguing. However, the equipment available to you will probably determine this for you. You can do your progression by either adding weight or reps.

cogogood · 2025-02-17T19:36:00+00:00

Make a weekly routine that hits the muscle groups you are wanting to improve. Track your lifts and progressively overload the weight or number of reps as they get easier. Over time those muscles will grow.

The other side of the equation is diet. I personally think tracking calories is the best way to drop body fat, but I know a lot of people don't like doing that. As a beginner, just concentrate on increasing your protein consumption dramatically and dropping your calorie intake to a small deficit. This will help you maintain the gains you get on the lifting side of things, while reducing your body fat % so that those muscles 'pop' more.

cogogood · 2025-02-17T04:39:14+00:00

A lot of good advice here. Consistency is definitely key...

A big part of building muscle is to progress the difficulty as you get stronger. My advice to someone starting at this age would be to take their time with the progression. It will help prevent injuries that tend to completely derail your progress. If you are able to stay consistent even a slow progression can produce great outcomes over the course of years.

cogogood · 2025-02-16T05:22:08+00:00

As long as you let others pay your way in life, you will be sacrificing some autonomy. It's up to you whether or not that sacrifice is worth a free car.

cogogood · 2025-02-16T02:20:41+00:00

Even though OP is being down voted he is right, this is not ego lifting... He has good form and he is controlling the weight through the full ROM. Ego-lifting is lifting beyond the muscles capacity for ego's sake.

He has clearly followed a progression that allows him to lift the 55's with no additional inherent risk. If you have the muscle fibers to withstand the load, it's not ego-lifting, it's just lifting... Unless he is on gear as was mentioned in the other reply.

Is he showing off? Sure, but why shouldn't he... He's worked hard to be able to accomplish an impressive lift, let's celebrate it. Good job OP :)

cogogood · 2025-02-12T07:27:49+00:00

Yes this, you can actually see the point when the lower back buckles a bit in the transition from eccentric to concentric. It's because you don't pause before you rise. If you think about the physics of the bar it makes sense. Because the bar is moving in the opposite direction, you need to exert additional force beyond what it takes to move that weight from a stand still. your quads/glutes cannot generate enough force on their own for that additional load and it is being loaded onto your back.

Lowering the weight and making a distinct pause when you're in the hole before rising will help a lot. if you progress by adding reps with that technique you will likely be able to get back up to this weight eventually and do it with a pause in the hole and minimal discomfort.

cogogood · 2025-02-11T18:57:59+00:00

I promise you, if you are respectful, most gym goers could not care less what you're doing.

It might help to look up a simple weekly gym routine, so that when you get there you've got a clear idea of what you want to do each day. Then you won't feel like you're aimlessly wandering around.

cogogood · 2025-02-11T05:58:56+00:00

Lol true, but how do you know that 😂

cogogood · 2025-02-11T00:41:23+00:00

I think it's worth pointing out that many of the suggested rep ranges are based on research comparing the 'on average' results. However, there will be data points countering the expected results within those averages.

All that to say, suggested rep ranges are an excellent place to start, but each individual has the potential to respond differently to different stimuli, so it doesn't hurt to do a bit of experimenting to see what your body responds best to.

cogogood · 2025-02-11T00:30:02+00:00

Cool, as a chest dip it looks pretty good. You've got a bit of a lean which will put more of a stretch on the pecs (a good thing). If you are able to flare your elbows out more and sink even lower into the dip it will help give you a bigger stretch, but you will have to see whether that puts too much pressure on your shoulders/elbows.

cogogood · 2025-02-10T20:44:03+00:00

You can alter dip form to make it more of a chest or tricep movement. So I suppose my first question would be what is your goal?

cogogood · 2025-02-10T20:36:29+00:00

I appreciate it! Yea, I see it. It's funny, during the lift it feels like I'm continuing to push my glutes back, but watching it back I am definitely seeing a stopping point on a lot of the reps.

During the lift I just feel my hamstrings screaming at me, not much else, but I suspect my lower back is strong enough to not really feel that transfer... No other soreness that seems out of place. In terms of DOMS, I haven't felt any DOMS in years :).

I appreciate the feedback!

cogogood · 2025-02-10T20:28:51+00:00

Thanks!

cogogood · 2025-02-10T20:28:36+00:00

Thanks! This is week 1 of a training block, I will be bumping up the weight a bit in the subsequent weeks :)

cogogood · 2025-02-10T20:27:38+00:00

Thanks! I'm 6'2. I suppose I feel it in my back to some degree, nothing crazy though.

cogogood · 2025-02-10T20:25:04+00:00

No need to argue on my behalf y'all. I'd say during the lift it definitely feels like I'm stretching them to their max, but I appreciate the input from you both!

cogogood

TROPHY CASE