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
First of all, bravo on all of her gains!
There are very thoughtful replies above mine, which I’ll try not to repeat.
If you and she decide, for whatever reason, that a tricep dip is a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-based) for her, then you might need to train her much more specifically for the skill of tricep dipping. If you are training her with free weights, they’re probably substantially less than the strength required to do a bodyweight triceps dip. If you’re not using a dip machine that has varying weights of assistance / resistance, then you could use the 42 inch giant rubber bands looped at an appropriate height to