client who cannot do tricep dips after two years!
I’ve been working with a client for over two years. She is 47, still quite overweight due to poor food choices, but her strength is pretty good and she is proud of herself for all her gains. We do mostly free weight exercises with dumbbells, kettle balls, HIIT, circuit training. She CANNOT do tricep dips. She keeps her fingers tented and just cannot bend her elbows. Some of it might be fear of falling, but I just can’t figure this out. She is able to do other tricep exercises without problems. Any ideas on how I can help her? thanks
My questoin is why are you making tricep dips so important? First of all, the tricep dip is not a safe exercise, even for athletic exercisers. It requires not only considerable triceps strength (can she move 50% of her body weight to perform a cable triceps extension?), but stabilization of the entire shoulder/ribs/neck musculature. Second, the triceps dip places the exerciser in a high risk position for the shoulder/elbows/wrists. Is there a functional reason to have the client perform this exercise? Third, is the triceps dip superior to all other triceps/shoulder exercises in some way that makes it the best choice? Again, I don’t think so. Is the client capable of performing a full push up? Have you used any progression programming to get the client to the desired ability to perform the triceps dip. Regression is more appropriate in this situation. The client has shown no ability to perform the exercise. Regressing to an exercise that can be performed and progressing from there is the professional approach to this situation.