I have always done dips to the depth where my upper arms are parallel to the ground. I have read about rotator cuff damage if dips are done using a full ROM, and I have had rotator cuff problems in the past. On another t-mag thread I noticed members advising on using a full ROM. Is this safe?
If you don’t have any pre-existing injuries, they are safe. However, you have, so I’d stick to what you’re doing.
So much of this stuff won’t create new injuries, but they’ll sure as hell aggravate old ones.
My take is a little different. If you’ve rehabbed properly, AND if you’re regular about doing rotator cuff exercises (taking some tubing and using it to strengthen the cuffs before/after your workouts), then I think you’re okay with a full ROM.
I have had RC problems in the past, fixed them, learned from my mistakes, and now incorporate RC pre-hab work religiously. No more problems. Furthermore, I know several others who have done the same thing. It’s only the younger guys who, thinking that they’re “cured”, fail to do the follow-up stuff on a regular basis and re-injure themselves. (Of course, there are exceptions. If you really just tore the hell out of it, then maybe not. But if it was relatively minor, you should be okay.)
i go well past parallel, but shoulders are, have been, and always will be fucked.
i think it may depend on the load you are using.
I do dips until I feel a stretch in my RC and no further. When I feel it tighten up, stop, and proceed to go back up.
I go down as far as I can, which is quite a bit below parallel.
Only thing about it though is I notice as much shoulder work way down near bottom as I do tri’s.
Which means I’m a little more worn out/tired for my lifts coming after dips.
I think alot of the aggrevation is caused by poor technique while dipping (eccentric phase) if you just drop your body you could stretch the shoulder joint, and cause soem other undesirefull stuff like humerus abduction behind the shoulder which causes rotator cuff impigements.
to prevent this, in any pushing exercise try to perform the yeilding (eccentric) phase by actively pulling together your shoulder blades, rather ,moving your elbows or dropping. this will make sure ou are stretching the antagonist muscles (delts, chest) rather then the joint.
also, a proper warm up, getting blood flawing to the muscle is extremlyimportant when dealing with the shoulders. you see, advanced trainees with some hypertrophy have even less space for their rotator cuff muscles to move because they are bigger but they space for them has not grown… improper warmup can lead to shoulder bursa inflamation (the bursa lets the joint/tendon slide against the muscle with friction)
this is realy short and I could write an article on this one… I won’t.
S-man.