3 Best Exercises for Tricep Building
Posted: Friday, September 11, 2009
by Tony Schwartz
Is there a lifter out there who doesn't want larger arms and a bigger bench press? The triceps are one of the least discussed muscle groups. After all, they contribute significantly more to your overall arm size than your biceps, and they are a key muscle group in all pressing exercises.
With this is in mind it should seem obvious that building your triceps should be a priority if you want to get bigger and stronger. The problem is that most bodybuilders do not know how to train their triceps correctly. You will often see bodybuilders wasting away valuable energy on things like pushdowns and kickbacks. Now, there isn't anything wrong with these exercises, but the majority of your time would be much better spent on compound exercises which allow for heavy weights to be used.
With this in mind let's take a look at three fantastic exercises for your tris:
Triceps Skullcrushers
This is probably the weight lifting movement with the most frigthening name. After all, who wants their skull smashed? But the exercise is perfectly named because it is done lying down on your back on a bench with a barbell at arm's length. You will then flex at the elbows and lower the bar until it touches your forehead. Obviously if you do this in an uncontrolled way it will hurt your skull!
The key to this exercise is to make sure the tension stays on the triceps. To do this you want the elbows tucked in and pointed towards the ceiling. It is important that you only flex and extend the elbows and that you do not move them forward or backward, or you will shift the tension off the triceps.
While this exercise is usually done by touching the bar to the forehead, you can vary the point at which you touch in order target specific areas of the triceps. In general, shifting lower on the body, such as the chin, will hit the medial head harder, while shifting higher on the body will hit the long head harder.
Narrow Parallel Bar Dips
This is the classic triceps mass builder. Parallel bar dips are likely responsible for building more triceps msucle mass than any other movement. This is due to the combination of heavy weights and targeted stress that they provide to the triceps. When you first begin lifting you may have difficulty completing more than a couple of these, but as you progress it is vital to continue adding weight by using a dumbbell between your feet or a specialized dip belt. The addition of external loading will allow you to continue to progress in this movement once you are capable of easily handling your body weight.
As with most triceps exercises, the key to proper performance is to keep your elbows close to the body. This means using a narrow grip on the dip bars. It also means that you should use an upright posture without too much forward lean. Leaning forward shifts more of the tension to the deltoids and chest, which is not what we want for our goal. Ideally you should descend into the bottom of the exercise until your upper arms were parallel with the ground. However, this will cause shoulder pain in a good number of lifters, and in this case you should either shorten the range of movement or discard the exercise altogether.
Close-grip Bench Press
If this isn't the undisputed king of the triceps movements, then it is pretty close. The ability to use heavy weights due to contributions from your chest and shoulders allows you to really blast the triceps and force them to get bigger. While you want to work on continually getting stronger, you should not sacrifice correct technique for weight. With this exercise it important to keep the elbows near your body throughout the movement in order to keep as much tension as possible on the triceps. Even with a narrow grip the tension can be shifted off of the triceps muscle and put onto the elbow joints if you do not keep the elbows tucked in tight. This obviously not only hampers your muscle growth, but can lead to elbow and wrist problems as well.
As you can see perfect form is critical to your success with triceps exercises, just as it is with all exercises. You can perform exercises incorrectly and still get some of the benefit, but you will never see great results and you may just hurt yourself in the process. Because of this it is suggested that you learn how to do these exercises correctly from an expert in the field.
See video and get tips on Triceps Skullcrushers and other exercises in the free body building exercise technique guide.
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