Welcome to another Spartan Insider VIP Newsletter. This Newsletter has been on a short hiatus as I was overseas on holiday but that doesn’t mean there’s been no news to report.
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Read on for this week’s news…
Oxygen Health & Fitness
Parallel Bar Dips
Most guys can get their first parallel bar dip fairly quickly, though it can take longer for some. However, once you get that first one, don’t be in a rush to move ahead until your form is near perfect.
There are a lot of subtleties to performing a good parallel bar dip. Tilt your torso forward a bit to maintain proper shoulder alignment when performing parallel bar dips. The elbows should stay roughly over your hands, so your shoulders will wind up in front of them. You can vary the degree to which you do this, and doing so will change which muscles are emphasized – the more you lean forward, the more you’re working your chest; the more upright you stay, the more you’re working your triceps. Trying to stay totally vertical is not ideal, however, as doing so can put unnecessary strain on your shoulders.
Keep your abs tight and maintain a tight body throughout the range of motion. Don’t allow your hips or legs to swing during the exercise. You may find that bending the knees and/or crossing the ankles can help maintain stability.
When doing parallel bar dips, you want to achieve about a 90 degree elbow bend, which is deeper than most people realize. If you have healthy shoulders and can increase the range of motion without discomfort, feel free to go all the way down until the bars are practically in your armpits. Make sure to come to a full extension at the top of each rep, too.
People obviously have varying levels of mobility, but as long as you keep the shoulders healthy, use as large of a range of motion as is safe and practical. Squeeze the most you can out of every rep.
If you’re a dipping machine and can bang out reps with ease, try doing weighted dips using a dip belt or vest. Start with just a 2.5 or 5kg plate and slowly progress from there. For the sake of your triceps, chest, and shoulder development, they ought to be a part of your training.
Winter a solid season of training
Another successful Season of strength training in Kiama is just about complete. Winter saw the guys push through a 5×5 Strength program, a Power phase of low rep/heavy weight training including some 1RM testing on the Bench Press and Squat, as well as a Hypertrophy program which finishes up today. There’s been personal records set and muscle gains made in amongst some bloody hard work and fun times. If you need to get back into the swing of it, come join us and bring on Spring!
Geoff gets the gains
Geoff McIntyre has always been more into the cardio side of training enjoying things like running and boxing. I only just documented recently that Geoff had made some great progress with his strength and the stats suggest that he has transferred that into more mass with a 2cm increase in each arm, 3cm on his chest and 4cm on his hips.Well done Geoff, the hard work is paying off!
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