Here's your new mantra: Tri's before fries. What do I mean by this? Well, let me tell you.
I got some feedback from a few people telling me that when it comes to building massive arms, biceps are not really important and how training them is overrated. And you know what? They are 100% correct.
It was perfect feedback because this brings me to the second muscle of focus in the GETBIG series: The Triceps.
If you want fuller and bigger looking arms, triceps are the muscles to focus on. The triceps make well over 50% of your arm structure, so if you want your arms to look wider from the front, side and back, having a meaty tricep will get you those Thor arms.
Before I get into my personal favourite exercises for triceps, its important to understand the anatomy of the triceps so you can understand just how large the muscle is within the arm.
Anatomy
Just by hearing the word triceps brachii, you can automatically assume there are three muscles (tri = three in Latin). The three muscles are the lateral head (found on the outer side), medial head (middle of the tricep) and long head (longest part which runs the full length of the back side of the arm).
The main function of the tricep from a biological standpoint essentially is to just straighten the arm by extending at the elbow joint. It is a pretty simply and straightforward muscle in terms of function and in my opinion, the easiest muscle to work in terms of targeting because there so many isolation exercises you can do to focus the triceps solely.
In order to get massive triceps, I highly suggest a 60-40 split. 60% of triceps training will come naturally from compound lifts such as bench presses and dips. The heavier you go on these compound lifts, the more work your secondary muscles (biceps, triceps, forearms etc) will experience. 40% should be devoted to lighter weight isolation exercises, which I’ll go into more depth shortly. When you pair heavy compound and light weight isolation exercises, you have a recipe for some serious mass gain as you hit type 1 and type 2 muscle fibres.
Skull Crushers
Don’t worry, this exercise won’t literally crush your skull, its honestly an outdated name for the exercise. The reason I like this exercise so much is that it singles out the triceps for the most part. Make sure you lift fairly heavy on this exercise whilst still being able to maintain good form. There are a variety of different forms and equipment which can be used for this exercise, but I prefer the conventional method. I perform this on a flat bench using an EZ curl bar. The bench stabilizes your back so you can’t cheat any reps which leaves your triceps to propel the weight all by themselves. Make sure you go slow on the eccentric portion of this exercise (the lowering of the weight). Feel the stretch on the way down, then explode up but PLEASE DO NOT LOCK OUT YOUR ELBOWS. You can cause serious injuries to your elbow joints and ligaments short term and long term.
Weighted Dips
If you are not able to perform a dip, then use the assisted dip machine or triceps dip machine till you no longer need it. Dips are my second favorite exercise because it is multi-jointed. It helps pack on overall mass on the back portion of your arms as you are lifting and lowering your body weight. To make it even harder and strenuous, wear a belt and attach weighted plates to increase resistance and reach failure within 8-12 reps. Now that what is extremely important to note with this exercise is your body positioning. Don’t lean forward! If you do, that will hit your lower chest. Instead, keep your body vertical as much as possible throughout the entirety of the exercise and ensure your elbows are tight to your sides. This will isolate your triceps much more and get you those horseshoe triceps in no time!
Cable Triceps Push Down
If you are looking for an incredible burn/pump this is the exercise you want to do for triceps. I like to do this exercise near the end of my workout as it’s a total isolation movement for your triceps by which point are already exhausted from compound lifts done earlier. You can do this exercise with a flat bar or a rope. I prefer to do it with a rope as I have more range of motion and can split the rope at the bottom to get more of a squeeze at the lowest point of the push down. There is no right or wrong way its just what you simply prefer. One common mistake I see with this exercise is many ego lifters add too much weight to the point where their elbows are flared and they start to use their back to help push the weight down. Remember you are just cheating yourself by doing this. You made the effort to go to the gym, you might as well train properly. Use progressive overload by adding small weight (5lbs) or reps every week to each exercise. This is how you get stronger and bigger over time.
Now there are a lot of opinions on how to develop and grow your triceps. There are advocates of heavy weights for the stretch, lighter weights for the burn or a mix of both. I personally side with a mix of both. Heavy and light weights both elicit response from your muscles fibers. So why not get the best of both worlds and use a combination of both? As long as you can get in 60+ reps per week with direct and indirect training to your triceps that will be more than enough to stimulate growth. You just need to make sure you train with enough volume to shock the muscle into tearing and rebuilding.
Again, none of this makes a difference if you don’t consume enough calories/protein/water to help rebuild the damaged muscle so much sure you are eating and drinking plenty!
Stay tuned for next week!
Appreciate the love and support. Have a great rest of the week fam!
Hussain
Follow @TheELORE and keep sending me your feedback and questions to @huuusss_p on Instagram.
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