Negative Ring Dips

The chest and triceps do most of the work resisting the descent, with the front deltoids taking more load through the bottom half. On rings the biceps and upper back work through the whole descent to keep the rings drawn in so they do not drift apart, the forearms grip the rings for the entire set, and the abs hold the hollow body position throughout.

A fixed bar holds itself still, rings do not. On rings you have to produce the pushing force and hold the rings in position at the same time, which brings the chest, biceps and upper back into the job and makes the same depth feel much heavier. That is why most people can do bar dips long before their first clean ring dip.

There is no test you have to pass first. As general guidance, the movement goes much better if you can already hold the top of a ring support with your arms locked and your shoulders pulled down, and if you are comfortable dipping on parallel bars, so the slow descent is the only new thing you are learning. What you do need is the equipment: rings hung high enough to go deep without your feet reaching the floor, a stable box to step in from, and chalk.

Daniel's instruction is simply to lower yourself slowly. In practice that means slow enough that you stay in control of the whole range and could stop at any point on the way down, rather than counting to a fixed number. If you are falling through the bottom, shorten the depth until you own it instead of speeding the rep up.

Daniel sets no rep target, so treat this as general guidance rather than his prescription: a few sets of a few slow negatives per session, commonly 3 to 4 sets of 3 to 5 reps, is a workable starting point. The ladder runs floor assisted ring dips first, then these negatives, then full ring dips. Once your descent stays slow and controlled to at least 90 degrees with your shoulders staying down across every set, start testing the press back up on full ring dips.

You need something to step up on so you can reach the top support position without jumping into it, and to step back up between reps. A box, bench or sturdy chair all work, as long as it is stable and tall enough to let you get into the top position with your arms locked out.

Daniel does not prescribe a frequency here. As general guidance, two to three sessions a week with a rest day or two between them works for most people, since slow eccentric work asks a lot of the chest and triceps. Place them early in a push session while you are fresh, because the quality of the descent is the entire point of the exercise.