10 Best Triceps Exercises

The triceps is a shoulder muscle with three heads: long, medial and lateral. It works every time you extend a limb at the shoulder or elbow joint. But to pump up the triceps, you need to extend your arm under load.

The Lifehacker Telegram channel contains only the best texts about technology, relationships, sports, cinema and much more. Subscribe!

Our Pinterest contains only the best texts about relationships, sports, cinema, health and much more. Subscribe!

Choose 1–2 exercises that suit your difficulty. Include them in your workouts and alternate each week. A different type of load will prevent addiction and ensure constant growth.

Perform 3–5 sets of 8–12 reps. Select the weight so that the last repetitions of the set are difficult, but the technique does not suffer.

Reverse push-ups on a bench

Another exercise without special equipment. Find a low support, turn your back to it and place your palms so that your fingers point to the sides. Thanks to this unusual positioning of the hands, the shoulder joint will protrude less forward, which means that the chances of injuring it will be reduced.

Straighten your legs, do not raise your shoulders. Lower yourself until your shoulders are parallel to the floor, and then push yourself up. Try to do the exercise smoothly, without jerking: this way you will load the triceps as much as possible and avoid injuring the joint.

Common mistakes when extending arms

The most common mistakes are:

Bending the wrists downwards. With the correct technique for extending the arms on a triceps block, the hand should be in the same straight line with the elbow, and always in the same position. There is no need to “accelerate” her, as if you were “turning the trigger” on a motorcycle.
Elbows are spread wide apart. You need to make sure that your elbows are pressed to the sides of your body during triceps extensions. If they move apart, then the latissimus dorsi muscles are involved in the work, and the triceps cannot be properly loaded.
Excessive forward lean or hunched back. These are also very common mistakes when extending the arms, interconnected with each other. With such violations of technique, it is not so much the triceps that work, but the back and abdominals.
Taking a position too close or too far from the “frame” with the block. If you stand too close to the block, your elbows will always be pulled back, and you won’t get a clean load on the triceps muscles. If you stand too far from the machine, this will force you to lean forward all the time, and the execution technique, and with it the efficiency, will again suffer. The correct position will be indicated by the mirror and the sensations of your own body.
Pull the handle from the top position with your back, followed by lowering your arms down with your triceps. If you have been training recently, you are most likely making this mistake. Find an exercise machine with an upper block opposite the mirror and watch yourself - you will immediately understand what is wrong in your movement. Work only your triceps, not your back. There is no need to group your entire upper body, pushing the handle down.

We have offered you the best options for triceps exercises performed in a crossover. If you want to see a complete, well-thought-out arm workout, check out the video below:

Dips

This exercise can be performed with or without additional weight if your muscles are not yet ready for weighting.

Grasp the bars, do not raise your shoulders, squeeze your shoulder blades together. Lower yourself until your shoulders are parallel to the floor. Keep your body straight, do not lean forward: this will allow you to maximally load your triceps. Push yourself up and repeat the exercise.

If you still can't do dips with your body weight, try doing them with an expander. Place a resistance band over the bars, place your feet in the loop, and push up with support.

French bench press with barbell

For this exercise, you can use different bars: straight, EZ or W. A curved bar allows you to grab the barbell at a slightly angle - it’s more comfortable.

Lie down on a bench with your feet flat on the floor. Raise the barbell in front of you and place your arms straight behind your head. If they are perpendicular to the body, the triceps will rest at the extreme point.

Now bend your elbows and lower the barbell behind your head. The shoulders do not change their position, only the forearms work. Bring the barbell back and repeat.

The best exercises to work your triceps

The more intense your workouts, the more prerequisites for triceps growth you will create. Together with the blood, all the nutrients necessary for hypertrophy will enter the working muscle group.

However, this does not mean that arm training should last several hours, during which you will have time to do 10 or more exercises. To fully work out all 3 triceps bundles, 3-4 exercises are enough, which will take a maximum of 30-40 minutes. Let's look at the most effective exercises and their features.

Close grip bench press

This exercise is a basic exercise for the triceps muscles. Don't take its name too literally: the distance between your hands should be only slightly narrower than the width of your shoulders. This will ensure a full contraction of the triceps and will protect you from discomfort in the hands, shoulders and elbows.

Throughout the entire approach, it is important to keep your elbows as close to your body as possible, then the efficiency of this exercise will increase. If you have difficulty keeping the barbell level, do the Smith press with a close grip. This will make the exercise more isolated, as it will reduce the load on the stabilizer muscles.

French press

This is one of the best exercises for pumping up the triceps. It allows you to focus the load on the contraction of the long and medial fasciculus, and it is they who set the visual “massiveness” of the arm. To do this, lower the projectile as low as possible and take a short pause at the lowest point.

Remember that this version of the exercise is dangerous and requires good stretching, so you need to adequately assess your strength and not overdo it with working weights. Large weights (from about 50 kg) are also guaranteed to “kill” your elbows. Therefore, this exercise should be placed second or third in your program and done as technically as possible.

Most often, the French press is done lying with a barbell on a horizontal bench:

When performing the exercise lying down, it is best to lower the barbell behind your head, closer to the back of the head. In the starting position, the arms should not be perpendicular to the body, but tilted at a slight angle towards the head. Thus, even in this position (and throughout the entire approach), the triceps will be tense and we will be able to slightly reduce the weight of the projectile for safety.

Using dumbbells can slightly reduce the stress on the ligaments and tendons of the elbow joint, although the movement becomes a little more difficult. However, with a narrower grip, you can lower the dumbbells even lower and stretch your triceps more:

© Makatserchyk — stock.adobe.com
A good option for variety is to perform a French press while sitting on a bench or standing. You must remember not to spread your elbows too far to the sides, but try to keep them at the same level throughout the entire set:

© Makatserchyk — stock.adobe.com
This group also includes extensions with one dumbbell with both hands from behind the head. The exercise is similar to the seated French press, but throwing and holding a large dumbbell will be harder.

© Nicholas Piccillo - stock.adobe.com
A variation of the last movement is a one-arm overhead extension with a dumbbell. Girls do this exercise more often:

Dips

This is a multi-joint exercise in which the load is distributed between the pectoral muscles and triceps. To target the triceps brachii muscle specifically, keep your body straight throughout the entire approach. No forward bending or rounding of the thoracic spine. Keep your elbows close to your body and do not spread them out to the sides, otherwise the entire load will shift to the lower pectoral muscles. In this case, it will be good if the distance between the bars is only slightly wider than the shoulders.

There is no need to go as deep as possible; this will only lead to discomfort in the shoulder joints and ligaments. Lower yourself down until you form a right angle between your forearm and upper arm. When you can easily work out 3-4 sets with your own weight, performing at least 15 repetitions, use additional weights.

Extension on the block

This is an isolated exercise for local development of the lateral head of the triceps. Although this is the smallest part of the muscle, you need to devote no less time to it than the rest, since it is this that sets the “horseshoe” shape of the triceps. This exercise usually ends your arm training.

To ensure maximum blood flow to the triceps brachii muscle, work with light weights without supporting yourself with your core. Don't forget to focus on the negative phase of the movement. At the moment of full extension of the elbow joint, tighten your triceps as much as possible for 1-2 seconds. The number of repetitions is at least 12. Press your elbows to your ribs throughout the entire approach.

To “hook” as many muscle fibers as possible, use all the handles available in your gym and vary your grip from wide to narrow (from workout to workout, not the same). This triceps exercise can also be done in a crossover.

The most common option is extension with a rope:

Push ups

The triceps come into play perfectly when doing push-ups with a narrow hand position. This is an ideal exercise for home workouts. To further target the lateral triceps, point your hands with your fingers facing each other. The elbows will be directed in different directions, but in this particular case it will only increase the peak contraction. It is also worth doing plyometric push-ups (with clapping) from time to time, they are great for developing the explosive power of your triceps.

This also includes reverse push-ups from a bench or any other elevation:

Neutral grip dumbbell press

This exercise is similar to a regular dumbbell bench press. The difference is that the grip here is neutral, that is, the palms are facing each other, and not towards the legs. When lowering the dumbbells, try to keep your elbows as close to your body as possible, rather than out to the sides. In this case, there is no need for the projectiles to touch; keep them at a short distance from each other.

Kickbacks

This exercise involves moving the arm back with a dumbbell while the athlete himself is bent over. Kickback can be performed with one dumbbell alternately or with two at once.

© Makatserchyk — stock.adobe.com
The slope should ideally be such that the body is almost parallel to the floor.
You can lean on the bench or even lie on your stomach. Alternatively, you can do a kickback on the lower block: