Weight Training Tips and Articles

Best Triceps Exercises

When it comes to building bigger arms, the biceps seem to be king. Many weight trainers focus most of their arm building efforts on biceps exercises. However, the triceps actually make up more of the upper arms size. Because of this, you need to do the best triceps exercises for optimal arm size.

The close grip bench is considered one of the best triceps weight training exercises. It will certainly work your triceps muscles hard. However, you will be working the inner pecs when you do close grip benches, and you may feel pain in your wrists if you lower the bar all of the way down to your chest. If you want to avoid these things, you can try another one of the best triceps exercises - reverse grip bench presses. It’s basically a bench press done with an underhand grip on the bar. Once you learn how to do these right, you won’t feel it as much in the chest or the wrists.

Triceps extensions are among the best triceps exercises and can be done many different ways. The most popular form of triceps extensions are called “skull crushers”. These are basically lying triceps extensions. They get their name from the fact that you have to lower the bar to your head. Overhead triceps extensions done with a barbell, dumbbell, or cable are also very popular.

Some of the best triceps exercises involve cables. You’ll see many weight trainers doing triceps pushdowns, usually with a straight bar. Another popular variation is to do them with a rope. Both of these exercises will allow you to contract the triceps muscles hard at the end of a rep. They make great finishers to a triceps workout.

Many of the best triceps exercises can be done one arm at a time. Overhead triceps extensions with a dumbbell in one hand and kickbacks are the most popular. You can also do cable exercises one arm at a time.

Once you start doing the best triceps exercises, you’ll certainly notice an overall increase in the size of the upper arms. Do these exercises with high intensity to coax them into more growth.

Target The Brachialis Muscle For Thicker Arms

  If you’re trying to build bigger arms through weight training you obviously need to do biceps and triceps workouts. However, there is a small muscle called the brachialis that lies between the bis and tris that you also need to train for optimal arm muscle size. Targeting the brachialis with a few sets during your biceps training will help give your arms a thicker look.

  While most biceps exercises will hit the brachialis indirectly, there are some exercises that you can do that will target it more specifically. Hammer curls are the best exercise for building the brachialis. To do them you take a dumbbell in each hand with the palms facing you and your thumbs forward like you were going to do normal dumbbell curls, but instead of rotating your wrists on the way up you keep your hands in a fixed position as you do the reps. At the end of a repitition your hands should be in a position like if you were using a hammer. Some gyms have curls bars with grips that allow you to do hammer curls with both arms at the same time. Do some sets of hammer curls during your biceps workout to target the brachialis.

  Another exercise that will hit the brachialis is the reverse grip barbell curl. You basically do a normal barbell curl but with an overhand grip rather than an underhand one. You won’t be able to use near as much weight while doing reverse curls as you would for normal ones. This exercise will also hit the back of the forearms.

  Make sure to do some exercises targeting the brachialis as part of your weight training routine and you will gain a thicker look in your upper arms.

Try Reverse Grip Bench Presses For The Triceps

  One of the most popular triceps exercises is the close grip bench press. With your hands close together it forces you to use the triceps more than the pecs on the bench press. However, if you bring the bar all the way down to your chest you may eventually feel pain in the insides of your wrists. To combat this you can stop the weight short of the chest or you can try reverse grip bench presses.

  To do reverse grip bench presses for the triceps you simply lay on the bench and grip the bar with an underhand, rather than overhand, grip. To get more focus on the triceps you should grip the bar a bit wider than you do for normal bench presses. Then you do reps just like you would if you were bench pressing, lowering the weight to the chest and lifting it to arms length. You’ll definitely feel it in the triceps when you do this.

  Reverse grip bench presses are an underused exercise. You’ll hardly ever see anybody doing them at the gym. This is probably because they do take some getting used to. Don’t expect to be able to do near as much weight as you do when you’re bench pressing. In fact, you should start very light and get used to doing reverse grip benches during your tricep workouts before you start going heavier. Once you get used to them, you may find that the reverse grip bench presses are a better triceps exercise for you than close grip benches.