Muscle Group Training

The 5 Most Effective Exercises To Build Big Triceps

Many people want to build bigger arms and among those people the majority of them fail to realize that to build bigger arms requires you to train both your biceps as well as your triceps equally.

The triceps are often and overlooked muscle group when it comes to adding inches to our arms.  However, the triceps make up a good majority of our total arm mass.

Today I would like to share with you some of the most influential exercises to build bigger triceps.  Including any or all of these exercises will be at quick way at finally gaining new size on your arms.

Close grip bench press:

The close grip bench press is similar to the regular bench press but the grip that you use for it for your hand placement is much narrower.

By using a narrower grip the stress is placed primarily on the triceps muscles instead of your chest muscles.  Both muscle groups play a role in each different exercise but the hand placement will be the determining factor of which muscle group becomes the primary.

Using the close grip bench press will allow you to use a very heavy weight as this is a compound exercise for your triceps.

And even better variation of the close grip bench press is to perform the exercise in a bench press or squat rack where you can perform the exercise in a limited range of movement performing only the partial reps at the second half to top of the movement.

But only completing the upper portion of the pushing exercise you will insure that you keep the stress placed more so on the triceps and avoid placing unneeded stress on your shoulder joints as well as your chest muscles.

Skull crushers:

Skull crushers is an exercise that is performed when a person lies down flat on a bench on their back and holds a barbell in their hand and holds it above their head with their arms extended.

Slowly the person should lower the bar to just above the top of their head and then return the bar to the starting position over top of their chest with their arms fully extended.

This is another exercise that is considered more of a compound movement and allows you to use maximal weight to stress the triceps.

Dumbbell kickbacks:

The dumbbell kickbacks are an exercise that involves Bending over at the hip while holding a dumbbell parallel to your body and extending your arm till it is fully extended and contract in the tricep at the top of the movement.

When performing dumbbell kickbacks be sure to use a weight that allows you to perform the exercise with proper tempo and without using too much momentum or swinging.

Be sure that the top of the movement you pause for a split second and contracted tricep fully.

Tricep push downs:

The tricep push down is considered more of an isolation exercise for the triceps.  This is a very effective exercise to gain muscle in the triceps.

Since you are using a cable pulley, the tension on the bicep will be a constant vs. a tension when using a dumbbell which has different degrees of tension depending on the portion of the exercise.

Tricep push downs are excellent exercise to use to really isolate and contract triceps maximally without using momentum.

Tricep rope press downs:

The rope press downs are slightly different than the regular straight bar Tricep push downs in that when you use the rope your hands or palms are facing each other and are in a more natural position to be contracted.

You’ll notice that with rope press downs you cannot use as heavy of a weight as you could with the regular straight bar push downs but you will notice and increase in total Tricep tension which will result in further fatiguing your triceps.

Make sure to include any or all of these five exercises in your tricep workouts ensuring that you perform the compound movements first followed by the isolation exercises.

Use a slightly higher Rep Range when performing Tricep work to avoid unneeded stress on your elbow joints and to fully experience maximal contractions in your triceps.