Dip Stations

Good exercise but not worth a dedicated machine

Any woman who knows what it’s like to sport bat wings (the skin that sags beneath upper arms) is forgiven for thinking she needs a triceps dip station in her home gym. As good as it sounds, a machine that will just work your triceps is best left for the health club weight room. If you use one there, great, but there are other ways to target arm flab at home.

Better ways to work the triceps

For one thing, triceps dips are hard work, and most people won’t be able to perform even one on a dip machine when they start out. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive towards reaching your goal, just that there are more sensible ways to get there. For the first example you’ll only need dumbbells or another weighted object. For the second you’ll need a weight and some sort of padded bench. All that the last one requires is a sturdy chair.

• Skullcrushers - In this exercise you lay on a mat or bench and hold a dumbbell in both hands. Raising and lowering the weight behind your head will really get your triceps working.
• Triceps kickbacks - This move also involves straightening an arm as you hold a dumbbell, but it’s done in a half-standing position.
• Triceps dips - This is essentially the same exercise as you’ll be doing with a dip station, except you won’t have spent any money to be able to do it.
  

The bottom line

Triceps dips are great, and if you find a home gym of multi-weight machine that has a dip station you’ll be all set, but as for spending money on a dip station that doesn’t offer anything else, it’s a waste pure and simple. If you want to target the backs of your upper arms there are cheaper and better ways to go about it than spending $200 to $400 for a piece of equipment that’s probably too big for your home. If you are interested in a dip station because it comes as a part of a multi-exercise machine, make sure the total package is worth the price.