Triceps are like the calf muscles of the arm. Mistreated, forgotten and underrated. The triceps is a very important muscle to focus on if you want massive arms, just having big biceps won’t do. You also gotta have a nice set of triceps to accompany the gun show. So for this occasion, we will take a rundown of the 5 best triceps building exercises you should be doing.
Dips
Starting things off with a fan favorite, we got the dips. They are one of the essentials for building the tris. Especially when you get good at performing them and start adding some extra weights. You will look badass doing them, get stronger and get a nice set of triceps for your effort. Now performance wise, there’s not much to say because it’s a very basic exercise, but will get over that part as well. Get to the nearest power tower/dips station/ parallel bars, place your hands on the handle bar/parallel bars and get a good grip. Having a good grip is priority number one at this point because everything else lies on you having a firm grasp of things….in life in general and in performing dips. Now comes the “hard” part, once you’ve gotten a good grip elevate your entire body upwards. Your entire body should be resting on your palms and elevated from the ground. Next up you crunch your legs a tad bit so that you don’t touch the ground when you start dipping. The important thing about doing dips is finding the right rhythm. Once you get a good groove going your max number of reps will increase and so will your triceps.
Skull Crushers
Another fan favorite, skull crushers are just a cool nickname for lying triceps extensions. They are very straightforward and easy to do but don’t overestimate your strength or else you might end up tearing something or getting a barbell crashing down on your head. Lay on the bench with an EZ curl bar in your hands, palms facing the sky. With your arms fully extended start bringing your palms towards your forehead. Bend the arms at the elbows and use only the lower part of your arms, thusly forcing your triceps to do all the heavy lifting. Aim for a high rep number, anywhere 8 do 13, so don’t get too cocky with the weights.
Triceps Pulldown
Pulldowns are triceps workout 101 basics. If you want big tris, you gotta do the pulldowns, no other way around it. Go to a triceps pulldown machine, adjust the weight so that it isn’t all that too heavy because you will be doing reps with these and proper form comes before half repping huge ass weights because that hot cardio bunny just walked by and you don’t want to give the impression you’re a “DYEL” .What’s cool about the pulldown machine is that you can play around with the grip a lot to hit the triceps from some different angles. Try experimenting with an underhand grip and close and wide grip positioning on the handlebar.
Close Grip Bench Press
Next up we got the bench press. The manliest of all exercises but with a little twist, you do them with a close grip. This shifts the focus from the chest to the triceps. Grab the bar as close as possible and tuck your shoulders in when benching. This puts a lot of muscular stress onto your triceps, which in return forces them to grow.
Standing Barbell Triceps Extention
Time for some more manly looking sh*t! This is another excellent triceps exercise and it makes you look super dope when you do it, so you will get to impress the gym bros and the fit chicks alongside getting a good workout. The motion is pretty much the same as the skull crushers but you do it from a standing position and you get an even better range of motion since you don’t stop at the forehead but go behind the neck with the curl. It is preferred you use an EZ bar because it’s easier to grip it and to balance it in these kinds of movements, but if you wish a standard barbell can also do the trick. As with the rest of the bunch, aim for a high rep and medium weight for the best results.
As you may have noticed I have decided to stick to basics and not overthink this. The basics are really all you need, you can go and do some sick ass isolation work on a bunch of machines, but when you use machines- they do the lifting for you. So my suggestion is stick with the basics, master them and then if you don’t see any results or get bored try experimenting with weird stuff you saw on youtube.
