Will Doing Dips Help Your Bench Press?

A Power and Bulk poster wonders if there's any carryover from weighted dips to benching. He asks:

I know the answer will inevitably be: "try it and see", but out of interest does anyone rate this movement (the weighted dip) as an effective assistance exercise for the bench? I've not really seen it mentioned in powerlifting circles... any particular reason why not??


I had the experience.

Worked up to a 200 + BW parallel dip along with doing (only) CGBP with a thick bar up to around 250-260 from a bottom start at chest.

It had NO correlation at the end to the standard bench press, other than what I could do relative to the CGBP.

Simplified, my triceps, shoulders and chest all got stronger for the effort. That impacted my bench press positively.

Is the dip some secret ingredient to benching greatness? Not really.

As its been said before you get good at what you do. Getting stronger generally is a good thing, but you still got to do the specific movement alot to get good at it.

Pat Casey seemed to like them.

I have very little crossover between weighted dips and bench press.

I have no carryover from any exercise to bench press other than the dumbbell version of the same exercise. In the same vein, benches have no carryover to my weighted dips. You get good at what you do.

weighted dips will not "make you weak".

they will not "tear up your shoulders".

the will make you very strong, in fact.

just not in a way that transfers well over into the bench press.

No carry over here, got to bw +150x5, did nowt for my bench. Best carryover Ohp's and inclines.

My strong bench carried over to weighted dips pretty well. I bet the reverse would also be true.

I practiced weighted dips & got to do where I could do BW + 90 pounds for a double.

Then I dropped dips & started benching more. I'm not sure what effect the dips had on my bench, but I didn't notice a direct correlation between X pounds on dips = x pounds on bench. I did notice that I was able to "feel" benching with my back more because of the dips. Does that make sense?

After benching for a while, I tried dips again on a lark & was able to do more weight. I forgot the number exactly, but I set a PR in dips without doing dips, only bench.

Anything that strengthens my triceps, increases my presses.

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remember what works for one person may not work for another