OK. I GIVE UP. LET'S TALK ABOUT GETTING BETTER
ARMS
(Part 2)
The Best Tricep Isolation Exercises
Review
Part 1 HERE
From Part 1:
What you should be
doing;
1. Lose the fat. Your arms will get more attention
if your gut isn’t hanging over your belt. And you’ll never get any definition in your arms until you lose the fat.
2. If you’re skinny, eat to gain lean mass.
3. Stop with the endless sets of single joint
isolation exercises. (curls and tricep extensions). You don’t need an “arm day”
in your program if you are a beginner or until you’ve been able to add 5% to
10% of your body weight in lean
muscle mass.
4. Get stronger and build more lean mass by doing
compound exercises. (Squats, dead lift, bench press, overhead presses,
pull-ups, dips, weighted carries and rows) It is infinitely easier to add inches of
muscle to your arms by doing compound exercises than by doing isolation
exercises.
5. Only after pre-exhausting your arms doing
compound movements should you do isolation work for your arms. Pushing compound
movements (bench press, dips, over head press) will work your triceps. Pulling
compound movements (pull ups and all rowing movements will work your biceps).
Basically, do isolation movements for triceps at the end of chest day and
isolation movements for biceps at the end of back day.
Let’s assume you understand and have followed the rules in Part 1 so
now you’re ready to learn how to do the best isolation exercises for your
triceps and do them correctly.
We’re starting with the tricep
muscles simply because they make up 60 to 70% of the muscle in the average
person’s arm mass. Yet they often are somewhat neglected in favor of the
biceps.
Remember, there are 3 parts (or “heads”) to the tricep muscle. While
most tricep exercises stimulate all 3 heads to some degree, some exercises (or
variations) will stimulate one head more. Learn which movement or variation
works on each head and work all three.
First, some rules:
1.
Don’t go too heavy. This is not a power lifting competition.
Trying to train arms with loads that are too heavy will lead to several
problems:
·
You’ll be forced to “cheat” which will negate a large portion of what
you are trying to do. When you cheat you transfer a large portion of your
effort to other muscles or several muscles resulting in not accomplishing
anything at all for your efforts.
·
You will incur injury.
You are using two relatively small and unstable joints in the wrist and
elbow. Both contain a lot of small muscle and bone structure. Injury to the
wrist and elbow are painful and take an inordinate amount of time to heal-weeks
to months.
·
You’ll look like a fool.
2.
The muscles in the arms respond best to strict form and a slow rhythmic
pace.
3.
Arm muscles respond best to medium and high rep counts. (8-15 reps) and
Time under Tension (TUT). Use slow eccentric, drop sets, rest pause and
finisher sets (A “finisher” set is a final set using about 50% of the weight
and high rep count to failure on the last set), static holds, half reps,
21’s…anything to extend the TUT. Before you even think about increasing the
weight, extend the TUT. Every set should take you a minimum of 30 to 45
seconds to complete.
4.
Genetics( and old injuries) matter. “You are unique, just like everyone
else”. Tailor all exercises to fit your particular bone, joint and muscle
structure. If an exercise causes pain (as opposed to discomfort) try a variation.
If an arm exercise causes you wrist pain all you usually need to do is vary
your grip (wider or narrower) or try a different handle or apparatus. I’ll give
some examples when we get into the various exercises.
The Best Exercises for Triceps
1.
Decline
Lying Barbell Extension (AKA “Skull Crushers”)
·
Do not lock out the elbows at the top. That’s cheating. You are taking
the tension off the muscle and, toward the end of the set, it’s almost
impossible not to rest a moment or two (or three) at the top. That’s also
cheating.
·
Keep your upper arm perpendicular to the floor at all times
·
The movement places most of the work on the long head. Lowering the
weight lower than the top of your head (as opposed of just down to your
forehead) also works the medial head more.
·
If the movement causes pain in the wrist, try taking a narrower grip or
a wider grip and/or using an EZ bar instead of a standard barbell.
Variations
Flat Bench
variation- This exercise can also be done on a flat bench but you’ll get a
shorter range of motion. But not all gyms have decline benches.
Dumbbell
variation- I like this variation for two reasons. (1) Its easier (and safer) to
lower the weight below head level for a longer range of motion by lowering the
dumbbells past either side of the head. (2) You can usually handle more weight safely
using 2 dumbbells than a barbell.
2.
Two
Arm Seated dumbbell extension
·
I don’t usually like movements where you are lowering a weight behind
the head but because of the position of the hands in this exercise there is
much less stress on the shoulders than say a lat pull down behind the head.
That said, be careful when you get into higher weights. You can probably do the
exercise with substantial weight but the act of getting a 100+ pound dumbbell
into position above your head can put a lot of explosive stress on the
shoulders. Have a spotter put the dumbbell in position for you or use one of
the variations below.
·
Keep your upper arms perpendicular to the floor at all times
·
Do not lock out. Keep the tension on the muscle at all times
Variations
One arm
variation- Perform the movement using one hand at a time. Use the free hand to
hold your upper arm tight against you head to keep it perpendicular to the
floor. You lessen the risk of shoulder injury and can use greater than 50% of
the weight used for the 2 hand variation.
Cable
Variation-Using a low pulley cable station and the rope attachment set the pulley
height at a point where the ends of the rope attachment reach the top of your
shoulders. Grasp the ends of the rope with both hands and lift straight up
above your head.( and keep the arms perpendicular to the floor). Adjust the
pulley height so that the tension is on the rope at all times.
This is also a good variation to use a static stretch on the last rep.
(simply let the rope pull your hands down as far as possible without releasing
the tension and hold that stretch for 10-15 seconds or longer.)
Do not bend forward at the waist or lean forward when doing this
movement (like about 75% of the people I see). You are transferring the load to
your back and shoulders and negating the whole purpose of the exercise. Yes,
you can move much more weight. Big deal…you’re cheating to do it!
3.
High
Pulley pull down
The high pulley is a very versatile piece of equipment for tricep
extensions. Using a variety of available attachments you can do any number of
exercises and hit all 3 heads of the tricep. Remember, transferring the
work load to the different heads is mostly a matter of the grip you’re using.
Some high pulley stations have an arm that extends outward where you
can put your back to the stack (some even have a pad for your back). Use these
if at all possible. It’s much easier to avoid cheating on the movement. Even if
you don’t have one of these stations try to do the exercises facing outward.
Having the cable running within inches of your nose tends to dissuade you from
leaning forward to cheat.
On all of the exercises that follow:
·
Keep your elbows pinned to your side. Never let them flare out or back
or forward.
·
Starting position is always with your forearms parallel to the
floor. Don’t let your forearms rise above parallel at any point during the set.
·
Squeeze for 1 or 2 seconds at full extension.
·
Be conscious of it and never let your shoulders take over the load.
High
Pulley with rope attachment (Short head/long Head)
·
Spread the rope ends at the end of the range of motion without moving your
elbows
High
Pulley with straight bar attachment (Long head/ Short Head)
High
Pulley with Revolving Curl Attachment (Medial Head/short head/
Long Head)
·
I would use only the Revolving Curl Attachments for this
exercise if you have any wrist issues.
Don’t
forget that compound lifts contribute much more to muscle growth than isolation
exercises. And there are variations to the compound lifts that will put more emphasis
on the triceps too.
For example:
-Bench Press- Use a closer grip
-Dips- keep your upper body more upright. Leaning forward puts the
emphasis on the chest
-Pushups- Put your hands close together forming a triangle with your
fingers.
There’s the short list of what I consider to be the best tricep
isolation exercises. There are almost 80 more (including variations) in my
video library (Go to the tab at the top of the page labeled "Calculators and Resources" ). Remember, different
things work for different people. Use them.
Don’t stick with the same exercise forever. You’ll get better results
if you switch them up. Different variations, different angles.
How you do any exercise is more
important than which exercise you do.
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