Triceps dips focus primarily on the muscles that run up the back of your arm. However, you also engage your core, which strengthens the abdominal muscles. The amount of abdominal engagement depends on the variety of dip you are completing and whether you are resisting just your body weight or additional weight.
Dip Varieties
Triceps dips come into two main varieties: one that uses a dip bar and one that uses a bench. Using a bench is a good beginning dip because you support your body weight with both your hands on the bench as well as your heels as they rest on the floor or as they rest on a bench opposite you. A triceps dip on a dip bar rests your body weight on just your palms and more intensely engages the triceps and supporting muscles of the shoulder and core.
Muscles Engaged
Both types of dips engage the triceps muscles; the deltoids at the front of the shoulder; the pectoralis muscles of the chest; the rhomboids, which connect your shoulder blade to your neck and spine; and the latissimus dorsi, one of the major muscles of the back, which sweeps under the arm to connect to the front of the shoulder. A body-weight dip on a dip bar also uses the transverse abdominals to stabilize your body and minimize swaying as you move up and down.
Abdominal Involvement
The transverse abdominis muscles lie deep in your core, running on the sides of your waist under your abdominals. They work with the rectus abdominis muscles, the large muscles in the front of your abdomen, and obliques, the muscles on either side of your waist to support spine flexion. When doing a dip, the transverse abdominis muscles help hold in your abdomen, supporting the spine and abdomen throughout the movement.
Considerations
The triceps dip isn't built to strengthen your abdominals. While your abdominals are engaged, you can gain more strength in your abdominals more efficiently by doing exercises that specifically target the abdominal muscles as a group. The bicycle exercise, for example, where you lie on your back, raise your shoulder blades off the floor and bring one leg toward your chest at a time in a piston-like fashion, works the obliques, rectus abdominis and tranverse abdominis together in one exercise.
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