The PERFECT Triceps Workout

Take a look at the four main exercises that most people do in their triceps workouts: dips, close grip bench presses, pushdowns and lying dumbbell overhead triceps extension or skullcrushers.

Each of these classic movements have a major problem in common!

That is, they are each adept at hitting the triceps brachii muscle in a specific part of their range of motion, but none of them hits them completely.

Most people believe that even if they do all of these exercises they’re getting a complete triceps workout.  But the truth is, they’re some key elements to maximizing triceps gains.

We’re going to bring science back into our training as we always do and incorporate some specialized techniques and exercises that emphasize specific functions of the upper arm to make sure you get your triceps to respond.

Before we do, let’s start with some triceps brachii anatomy!

THE 3 HEADS OF THE TRICEPS

Even though the triceps is just one major muscle, there are 3 muscle heads to the triceps brachii muscle. That’s why they’re called TRI-CEPS!

Let’s take at the anatomy of triceps as well as a quick look at where each of the tricep heads is located, using our trusty Muscle Markers.

LATERAL HEAD

MEDIAL HEAD

LONG HEAD

The lateral and medial head of triceps only influence elbow extension, and they don’t cross the shoulder joint.

The long head is very important when it comes to triceps training because it does cross the shoulder joint, coming off of the scapula.  This means that if we can change up the position of the scapula in the triceps exercises we choose, we can change the tension on the long head of the triceps brachii.

how to train the triceps

Let’s get granular and look at the specific ways in which your arm workouts need to challenge your triceps in order to be considered complete.

The best triceps exercise will focus on hitting all three heads of the triceps brachii, as well as stretching of the long head using overhead exercises, utilizing progressive overload, and making sure overlapping strength curves are taken into account. Any definitive guide to most effective triceps exercise should also focus on muscle gain and building strong arms.

STRETCHING OF LONG HEAD

To fully work the triceps muscle in your workout you want to be sure that you are including overhead tricep exercises that increase muscle activity in the long head. 

That means putting the triceps brachii on stretch by choosing exercises that position the arm over your head by bending your elbow joint.

The Triceps Push Away is a good example of an overhead pressing exercise that achieves this.

But it’s not enough to just hit the triceps brachii with exercises that place your arm over your head. You must also take into consideration that you want to fully shorten the muscle by placing the arm back into extension behind your body as well.

We need to include exercises that engage the triceps into a full contraction or a fully shortened position by pulling the arm back in full extension such as the Triceps Pushdown.

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD

In our Perfect Triceps Workout we don’t want to lose sight of the fact that progressive overload still matters.

When trying to build muscle mass, you will not want to forego the popular mass building triceps exercises such as the Close Grip Bench Press, but you’ll want to add to them with drop sets and partials.  I’ll show you how to do that in this workout so you can build stronger, bigger arms.

OVERLAPPING STRENGTH CURVES

The idea of overlapping strength curves is important in our triceps exercise guide.

We talked about this concept in the Perfect Bicep Workout.  In that workout we did a Banded Dumbbell Curl which allowed us to increase peak tension on the biceps brachii muscle throughout the entire range of motion of the curl.

Typically in a curl, we max out the strength curve in the middle of the movement, and lose that tension when we get up to the top of the movement. The bands help us to keep the tension going as you stretch further and further into that complete range of motion.

Similarly, we need to ensure that we are working the triceps brachii through its full range of motion.

For example, the only way to have secondary influence on the long head of the triceps brachii is to choose exercises that change the angle of the arm at the shoulder, because the long head attaches at the shoulder. The lateral and medial heads of the triceps originate on the humerus and cross the elbow joint only, limiting their influence to elbow extension only.

Exploring exercises that overlap these strength curves for the triceps muscle will help you to construct a workout that is great at achieving maximal development of the triceps brachii. We can incorporate this concept with an exercise like the Banded Lying Triceps Extension.

THE best TRICEPS WORKOUT: step by step

In structuring the Perfect Triceps Workout, I wanted to be sure we took into account all three heads of the triceps brachii, all three triceps functions and the different parts of the strength curve to ensure that the workout is truly comprehensive.

1.) THE ‘BIG EXERCISE’ – PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD

We’ll kick off the Perfect Triceps Workout with some of the ‘big exercises’ for upper body strength, because I prefer to address the heavier compound exercises first when we have the most energy and we’re able to hit them hard.

We’ll start with a variation of the Close Grip Bench Press called the Close Grip Pin Press done with heavy weights.

Start by lying on a flat bench with the bar positioned across the pins, hands shoulderwidth apart on the bar with palms facing away from you. Keeping your elbows tucked in close to the body, slowly lower the weight until the pins stop you, and then come back up returning to the start position.

CLOSE GRIP PIN PRESS

Why are we pressing off the pins instead of doing a full range of motion press? If you’re trying to overload the triceps, you have to realize that the majority of the work being done is from the midpoint on toward the lockout portion of the press.

If we train all the way down off our chest as we would in close grip bench presses, although it’s a good exercise, we’re working more on the delts to get them off our chest instead of it being an effective tricep movement.

Instead of chest pressing, what we’re trying to do with this Pin Press version is isolate more of the function of the triceps brachii, which will allow us to load this exercise up even heavier to match the strength the triceps have here.

2.) OVERLOAD AND INTENSITY

Now we’ll move onto the next big exercise, the Weighted Tricep Dip.

We’re going to work it with a special tri-set technique that allows us to get to failure and even push beyond muscle failure to build more muscle mass.

I definitely recommend doing this type of Weighted Dips instead of a seated machine dip because it allows for far greater intensity and overload with heavier weights and builds bigger triceps over time.

You can use my special dog leash technique to affix the plate around your waist for this exercise. Start by pushing your body upward, extending your arms and then lower your body back down to the starting position with arms with elbow bent at 90degree angles.

WEIGHTED DIP

To begin our drop set, we’ll set up with a weight around our waist or even a dumbbell held between the legs.  You’ll work that to failure and then let go of the weight and get back up to perform bodyweight dips, which is also one of the best bodyweight exercises for building triceps strength if you’re not yet strong enough to do this exercise weighted.

BODYWEIGHT DIP

But we don’t stop there.  We can keep going far beyond failure with an Assisted Dip, attaching a band around the knees and continuing to rep out.

ASSISTED DIP

In order to maximally engage the triceps, there are two things you’ll want to do in each of these three forms of the dip.

The first is that you’ll want to keep your trunk up as tall as possible so all of the focus is on the triceps muscle fibers.

The second is to make sure that you don’t allow the forearms to dominate this movement. As you come up to the top, try to do a small hand release by pushing down through the palms of your hands to let the triceps do all the extending.

Try not to grip too much because it creates too much muscle activation in the forearms and doesn’t allow you to go into full extension.

3.) SUPERSET FOR LONG HEAD STRETCH AND MAXIMUM CONTRACTION

This cable machine superset was designed to focus on the long head, taking it through both of the extremes of maximum stretch and maximum contraction.

We’ll perform an overhead Cable Triceps Pushaway (also known as overhead triceps extensions) for the stretch component. Since the overhead extensions create a stretched position of the long head, I try to accentuate that by allowing the arms to drift a little bit higher on every rep to make sure I’m getting a good stretch on the long head.

CABLE TRICEPS PUSHAWAY

As soon as I’m done with that cable extension set, I immediately transition right into the Drag Pushdown, also done on a cable machine.

The difference between these cable push-downs and a typical rope triceps pushdown is the placement of my hands.  Instead of being away from your body they’re right up against your chest, literally trying to ride your ribcage all the way down as you extend your elbow.

This gets the elbows back into extension, which is key if you want to put that triceps long head into a fully shortened position.

DRAG PUSHDOWN

4.) ADDRESSING THE STRENGTH CURVES

We’ll want to be sure we’re addressing the strength curves I talked about earlier.  

One triceps exercise that is ideal for this is the Rocking Triceps Pushdown which you’ll do on a cable station.

ROCKING TRICEPS PUSHDOWN

The idea behind this cable pushdown exercise is that since force changes during an exercise, we want to try to maximize the tension at each point of the range of motion by changing the line of resistance.

For example, in a regular Triceps Pushdown while I am pulling the cable straight down to my forearm, the line of resistance is perpendicular to the forearm and force is maximized.

However, when I get down to the bottom of the movement, the line of resistance on the cable is going to be parallel to the forearm.  When that occurs all the tension is gone.

We can fix that with a Rocking Triceps Pushdown by changing the orientation of the body to increase tension at the bottom of the movement as well.

To do this, you’ll lean in at the beginning of the exercise, and with your leg dropped back, you’ll rock backward toward the end so that the line of resistance is more perpendicular to the forearm at the bottom of the motion.

Keep in mind that we’re not leaning back in momentum to pull the cable or the stack down. We’re just allowing the body’s position to change to hit all of those strength curves.

5.) INCREASING TENSION THROUGH THE RANGE OF MOTION

Let’s take a look at a banded exercise to help us address our strength curves and increase tension through the triceps’ entire range of motion.

We’re going to do a Banded Lying Triceps Extension, which allows us to achieve this thanks to the tension the resistance band provides.

These are similar to skull crushers in which you’re using a band to work the entire strength curve.

BANDED LYING TRICEPS EXTENSION

If we were only using dumbbells overhead in this exercise, as we get to the top we start to lose resistance. In fact, if you were to allow your dumbbells to get straight up over your body, you’ve taken away much of the tension on the triceps, making this exercise less effective.

So instead we’ll want to keep them angled back a little bit.

THE WORKOUT

So, here is the entire Perfect Triceps Workout step by step, all sets, all reps for you to follow.

TRICEP WORKOUTS FAQS

1. How do you work all 3 triceps?

To work all 3 triceps, try the Close Grip Pin Press which hits the long head, lateral head and medial head of the triceps.

2. How do you hit all 3 heads of triceps?

To hit all 3 heads of the triceps give the Close Grip Pin Press a try.  It hits the long head, lateral head and medial head of the triceps.

3. What are 4 exercises for triceps?

Four great exercises for the triceps are:

• Close Grip Pin Press
• Weighted Dip
• Cable Triceps Pushaway
• Rocking Triceps Pushdown

4. Why is it so hard to build triceps?

Triceps are not hard to build if you choose the most effective exercises and focus on progressive overload. It is also important to choose exercises that put the long head of the triceps on stretch, and work all portions of the strength curve.

5. Is triceps easy to build?

Triceps are easy to build if you choose the most effective exercises and focus on progressive overload. It is also important to choose exercises that put the long head of the triceps on stretch, and work all portions of the strength curve.

6. What is the fastest way to build triceps?

The fastest way to build triceps is to choose the most effective exercises that focus on progressive overload such as the Close Grip Pin Press and the Weighted Dip.

7. How do I hit every tricep head?

To hit every tricep head, choose and exercise like the Close Grip Pin Press which hits the long head, lateral head and medial head of the triceps.