Dips work the chest, triceps and shoulders — and the Zyra Workouts catalog keeps two rows because the torso angle decides which of those is doing the most. The chest dip ("lean forward" in the catalog name) is chest-primary with triceps and shoulders secondary; the tricep dip ("upright") is triceps-primary with chest and shoulders secondary. Same three muscles, roles swapped. This guide covers both, how the app counts a bodyweight lift, and why progression on dips is a reps story.
Muscles worked
| Role | Chest dip (lean forward) | Tricep dip (upright) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary (1 set) | Chest | Triceps |
| Secondary (0.5 set) | Triceps | Chest |
| Secondary (0.5 set) | Shoulders | Shoulders |
Mechanically a dip is a press with the hands fixed and the body moving: the shoulders extend and the elbows straighten to lift you back up. Lean the torso forward and the upper arms travel further out and back, so the movement resembles a decline press and the chest does more of the lifting. Stay upright with the elbows tracking straight back and the movement is closer to a pure elbow extension, which is the triceps' job. The shoulders — the front of them — assist in both. All of this is a description of the geometry; the catalog does not carry an EMG measurement, and neither does this page.
| Chest dip | Tricep dip | |
|---|---|---|
| Catalog name | Chest Dip (Lean Forward) | Tricep Dip (Upright) |
| Category | compound | compound |
| Equipment | bodyweight | bodyweight |
| Bodyweight fraction | 1 | 1 |
| Default rest | 120 s | 90 s |
| Load step | 0 | 0 |
Setup and execution
- Support yourself on parallel bars with straight arms, shoulders down away from the ears.
- Chest dip: let the torso tip forward and the knees come back; lower until the upper arms are about parallel to the floor, elbows flaring slightly; press back to straight arms without straightening the torso.
- Tricep dip: keep the torso vertical and the elbows pointing straight back; lower until the elbows are near a right angle; press back up.
- Log added load (belt, dumbbell between the feet) in the weight field; leave it at 0 for plain bodyweight.
- Choose one version per program slot and log it under its own row — the two have separate histories.
Rep and RIR targets by goal
Both dip rows are compound.
| Goal | Reps | RIR | Rep ceiling | Sets (beginner / intermediate / advanced) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 3–5 | 2 | 6 | 3 / 4 / 5 |
| Hypertrophy | 6–10 | 2 | 10 | 2 / 3 / 4 |
| General fitness | 8–12 | 2 | 12 | 2 / 3 / 4 |
RIR is reps in reserve — how many more reps were left when the set stopped. @RIR 2 means the set ended two reps short of failure. The rep ceiling is the engine's "expected max": the midpoint of the range plus the RIR target, round((repMin + repMax) / 2) + rir. Beat the ceiling and the load steps up next time. Default rest is 120 s on the chest dip and 90 s on the tricep dip.
How progression steps on this exercise
Bodyweight rows have a load step of 0, so the engine's only lever is reps. On the hypertrophy target (6–10 @RIR 2, ceiling 10):
| Last set | Next session |
|---|---|
0 kg × 11 | 0 kg × 10 — progress, shown as the top of the range |
0 kg × 8 | hold 0 kg × 8 |
0 kg × 5 | 0 kg × 6 — back-off, shown as the floor |
In plain terms: past the ceiling the engine parks you at the top of the range, because it has no load to add. From there the choices are yours — a belt (logged as added weight, after which the reps rule continues on the weighted set), a slower tempo, or a switch to a loadable press such as the close-grip bench press or the barbell bench press, where a 2.5 kg step exists. In insights, a dip set's normalized volume is (scale weight × 1 + added load) × reps, so a 75 kg lifter's set of 8 unloaded dips reads as 600 kg. No 1RM page exists for either row.
Alternatives
The two rows have different primaries, so their swap lists come from different pools:
| Rank | For the chest dip (chest pool) | For the tricep dip (triceps pool) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Push-up — compound, bodyweight, 7 | Close-grip bench press — compound, barbell, 6 |
| 2 | Barbell bench press — compound, barbell, 6 | Overhead tricep extension — isolation, dumbbell, 4 |
| 3 | Dumbbell bench press — compound, dumbbell, 6 | Skull crusher — isolation, barbell, 4 |
| 4 | Decline dumbbell bench press — compound, dumbbell, 6 | Tricep pushdown — isolation, cable, 4 |
Notice that the tricep dip's pool is small: only five triceps-primary rows exist, so its list is the entire remainder. Swapping one dip for the other is not a substitution the rule offers, because the primary muscle changes — but in the weekly counter it moves exactly 0.5 of a set from one group to the other.
The short version
Two rows, one trio. Lean forward: chest first, triceps and shoulders at 0.5. Stay upright: triceps first, chest and shoulders at 0.5. Bodyweight fraction 1, load step 0 — the engine moves reps and stops at the top of the range; adding a belt is your call. Rest 120 s and 90 s respectively. Zyra Workouts is a training log, and this page is a guide to one movement in its catalog. Educational overview only — not medical advice.