The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (66 page)

The best way to align yourself is to raise yourself up onto the dip bars by locking out your arms. You will then align your body, starting with your head and moving down to your feet.

While suspended in the top position of the exercise, your head will at first be level and looking straight ahead. You may find that bending your head slightly forward as you lower yourself will help you lean forward for increased muscle stimulation in the chest. You must constantly focus all of your attention on the chest muscles during this exercise as this will help increase the involvement of the chest muscles and keep you in the proper alignment.

Bend your legs at the knees and hook your feet over one another. This will help keep your back arched forward for the ultimate involvement of the chest muscles. Your arms and elbows will ride away from your body as you lower yourself and when pushing upward to the lockout position. This will help keep the triceps muscles from becoming involved with the exercise.

TECHNIQUE AND FORM

Make sure that you have correct postural alignment. Begin the exercise once you are in position with your arms locked out (only in the beginning and end) and your body suspended from the floor.

As you lower yourself from the lockout position immediately begin to lean forward. The farther you lean forward, the more your chest muscles will work.

Lower yourself slowly while resisting your body weight all the way to the bottom position.

Keep the elbows and arms away from your body, helping to better isolate the chest muscles and avoid recruiting the triceps muscles.

Lower yourself until the backs of your arms are parallel or slightly beyond parallel to the floor. Remember, you should never go so low that you feel any chest or shoulder pain, or you could seriously injure yourself. Go to a point where you are comfortable and increase a little more the next session if needed.

When you reach the bottom position, do not rest! Slowly, with a smooth transition, begin to press your body upward without using any momentum. Make sure that you maintain your postural alignment.

As you begin pressing upward, make sure that all of your focus is once again directed to your chest muscles. This alone will help stimulate the triceps through increased muscle control. As you near the top of the motion, your goal is not to lock out the joint, but to contract and squeeze the chest muscles as hard as you possibly can for a one-second count. It is important for the chest muscles to hold you in this position rather than lock out with the triceps or the elbow joints.

Remember that there should be no rest at the top of the exercise after the contraction period. From that lock out position, once again slowly lower yourself as you resist the weight of your body back to the bottom position. If you get to a point where your body weight is too light for the exercise, you may use a dip belt to hook some additional weight to your body, thus increasing the resistance. Please make sure that if you do use additional weight, you do so in small incremental stages.