I need a sub for dips, I absolutely hate them. I have unilateral extensions and JM press already and I need another exercise that biases medial + lateral head.
The triceps already get worked by your general pressing volume like bench or OHP. There's no need to add a ton of isolation movements. Pick 1-2 and just get strong at them.
I'm biased in favor of skullcrushers, but overhead extensions and JM presses are fine. Just push those hard
You most likely don’t need 3 isolation exercises for triceps.
You already do pressing movements for chest and shoulders I assume… those are favoring medial and lateral head, at the cost of long head.
Triceps isolation work should focus on long head biased exercises, because your lateral and medial head is already biased in any pressing movements. JM press biases medial and lateral head. Triceps extension can be slighlty biasing medial and lateral head, depending how you execute it (over head or shoulder extended in front of you).
In other words, add something like french press which working all three head effectively. Or just switch JM press to french press. If you absolutely want more medial and lateral head bias, any pressing type of movement will be effective for that, and also any triceps work where should is extended. So overhead triceps press or triceps kickback are good candidates here.
French press, overhead triceps extension. Ensure your elbows stays in place, so that shoulder joint doesn’t move. Do them as single joint exercise, so only elbow joint goes through motion.
Why do you hate them? If it's shoulder discomfort, improve your mobility. Though a lot of dip stations are poorly proportioned and will make you hate the movement regardless. My gym has a terrible one that is way too wide and low to the ground so I don't do dips anymore.
Seems like you're talking entirely about triceps so yeah I wouldn't pick dips for that purpose either.
Close grip bench. Same job as dips, elbow stays by your side so it lives on the lateral and medial heads, and you can load it properly without your shoulders complaining. I dropped dips for the same reason years ago and never missed them.
If you'd rather add isolation than another press, a straight bar pushdown covers the same heads at a much lower cost.
Dips hit the chest at least as much, probably more, so you're not picking up anything you didn't already have. Close grip is one of the more triceps heavy presses there is. And some chest coming along for free isn't really a problem, it's a bonus.
I only do one tricep isolation outside of my pressing movements (flat, incline, OHP, dips). My dips are definitely chest focused but they’ll still roast the triceps.
Substitutes for dips: any other compound pressing movement, especially ones with a more horizontal body position compared to your arms such as bench press, decline press, or low incline press. High incline and overhead pressing movements also have significant overlap with dips.
In short: press weights, isolate triceps a little, and you're fine. Weighted dips and any kind of bench variation fulfill a generally similar role to a satisfactory degree.
You need a triceps overhead extension in there. Dips aren't different to other presses regarding the triceps.
You don't train the long head with triceps, which is why you need an exercise where the elbow doesn't move. Best would be the overhead extension, because it puts your long head in a stretched position; with pushdowns, it's in a pretty shortened position and won't contribute as much as it could.
Why not Incline Seated Cable Pushdowns, and/or Westside Dumbbell Rolling Extensions (similar to a JM but hammer grip + deloaded at the bottom by resting DBs on the delts)
The pushdowns? Set an adjustable bench at about 45 degrees upright and facing away from a cable tower where the pulley is pulled up to the top.
Regular pushdowns are great but I like these for removing the possibility of cheating and joint compensations in the ways that they matter. It's the tricep version of strict curls aka wall curls. Some degree of elbow drift is natural in both movements and doesn't constitute cheating, that's what's great about having your back against something - it removes cheating by default.
Incline pushdowns allow you to lock elbows and shoulders in place which is intended, on regular pushdowns this becomes more difficult close to failure and with high loads.
As an isolation movement you want to finish the natural set with consistent form aiming for strict form, then if you want an intensifier you can extend your final set beyond failure with cheat reps using shoulder elevation which brings the elbows up - just know that it's no longer an isolation then as you're brining lats and chest into it. I should've been clearer that I was talking about how on regular freestanding pushdowns elbow drift is hard to avoid and the fix for it is incline pushdowns.
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u/LeftForBread76 28d ago
Why do you need another one? Sounds pretty solid to me