Yesterday I did weighted dips with one hundred pounds for the first time. I started out with four sets of ninety, using two 45-pound plates strung on a chain attached to a dip belt. Ninety pounds strung up between your thighs renders you immobile. You can’t really walk around with all that weight dangling between your legs. When I am not dipping I am sitting on the floor by the dipping apparatus. Then after I rest I have to somehow stand up. In order to do this I roll the plates forward and that makes it easier to get upright. Then I waddle to the apparatus and climb one step to raise myself in preparation for the exercise. The Y has two different kinds of plates and I only select the plates with an extended rim. The extended rim, or lip, makes it a lot easier to grip onto the plates and steady them when I step down from the apparatus.

After four sets of ninety pounds with six reps each, I progressed to ninety-five pounds then made the final two sets at one hundred. That’s two large 45-pound plates plus a smaller ten-pound plate dangling between my legs. Talk about awkward. I did four reps of one hundred.

I do this exercise to target the chest, since I feel that the chest is one of my weaker muscle groups. Dips also target the triceps if one does the exercise while remaining perpendicular to the floor. The chest is targeted if one leans forward. It is now over 24 hours since I did these dips and man are my triceps and pecs aching. Tomorrow I will go to the Y yet try not to do any exercises that affect these muscle groups.

Today at the Club I won all three. Am I coming out of my disastrous 2008 slump? I even managed to play a natural KNOBBED against Glenn Dunlop. Can’t wait to play in Brantford!