4 New Triceps Exercises To Blow Up Your Arms!

Suffering from a case of "tiny triceps syndrome?" Never fear! Team Bodybuilding.com has your cure with these 4 exotic triceps exercises, plus 2 unique variations!

Exercises are like ice cream flavors. Most people choose common varieties like vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. A few others opt out of the mainstream, instead indulging in butter pecan, chocolate espresso, or mango. And a more limited number want to try something altogether different, like goat cheese cashew caramel. (Don't laugh: This is a real flavor from Black Dog Gelato in Chicago.)

Like those at the ice cream parlor, most people in the gym stick with a handful of tried-and-true movements, rarely venturing into new or unfamiliar territory. On triceps day, that means push-downs, dips, and skullcrushers. The more adventurous may vary hand grip and body or bench position to introduce some novelty into their arm training, but even they rarely venture from these safe waters.

And then there's this group of five Team Bodybuilding.com athletes, who sent us their personal triceps favorites that are extremely unique and effective. In the parlance of the ice cream parlor, these exercises would live at the far end of the counter.

Check out these unique triceps moves, and pick at least one to sample in your own routine!

1

SIDE CABLE TRICEPS EXTENSION

Courtesy of Brandan Fokken

About This Move: This is a move you'll rarely see. I bring the cable to about shoulder height. I stabilize my shoulder and keep the upper arm of my working side elevated and parallel to the floor so the movement is restricted to the elbow, which is pointed directly out.

SIDE CABLE TRICEPS EXTENSION BRANDAN FOKKEN 
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:15

Grasping the cable with an overhand grip, I extend my arm to move my hand straight outward, squeezing my triceps at full extension. The weight then pulls my hand back to the start position in a controlled fashion. I usually do 3-4 sets of 10-15 (even 20!) reps toward the end of my workout.

Key Training Tip: Maintaining your upper-arm position is essential for maximizing muscular tension on the triceps. If your elbow starts to stray, use your opposite-side hand to help support it and maintain its position.

2

BODYWEIGHT TRICEPS EXTENSION ON SMITH MACHINE

Courtesy of Mike Hildebrandt

About This Move: This exercise is a great choice to include in your routine to really target the triceps in a whole different way. This movement is unique because it uses your body weight and follows an unusual vector toward the bar.

BODYWEIGHT TRICEPS EXTENSION ON SMITH MACHINE MIKE HILDEBRANDT 
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:24

By doing this exercise, you'll notice that you can easily change the resistance by adjusting your feet, making it a great choice for supersets and dropsets. This exercise not only targets the triceps, but is great for core development since it requires your entire trunk to activate to maintain proper form.

Key Training Tip: Make sure you start close to the bar and position it fairly high to get comfortable with the movement. You should move back and lower the bar only when you're able to complete your set without breaking form (which is typically broken at the core).

Keep your head neutral as you perform the movement, and try to keep your elbows tight without allowing them to flare out.

DROPSET VARIATION OF THIS MOVEMENT

Courtesy of Steven Lopez

Start at the top and work your way down the Smith machine, training at three different levels. The bottom is the hardest on this long-head movement. I train to failure at each level, repeating for a total of 3 three-part dropsets.

3

DOUBLE CABLE KICK-BACK

Courtesy of Brandon Johnson

About This Move: Most people perform kick-backs either with a dumbbell or using a single-arm cable from the low-pulley position. This exercise combines the benefits of both exercises into one movement! This is a great exercise to isolate the triceps and really focus on the peak contraction.

DOUBLE CABLE KICK-BACK BRANDON JOHNSON 
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:10

Kick-backs with dumbbells are great, but I often see people start to lean with their body or allow movement in their shoulder. Using cables allows you to better focus on just the triceps.

Key Training Tip: I like to set up the cables so that they're slightly below where my hands will end in the flexed position. This lets me extend my arm in a more natural upward movement as I approach the end of the range of motion. Make sure you're bent over about parallel with the ground, and of course avoid rounding your back.

Don't worry about not being able to use a lot of weight with this exercise; the idea is to do slow, controlled reps, really focusing on the mind-muscle connection and the peak contraction.

4

INCLINE DUMBBELL TRICEPS EXTENSION

Courtesy of Brandon Johnson

About This Move: This is a great exercise that I picked up from Mike "Titan" O'Hearn. Mike talks a lot about training around different angles, not only to fully develop a muscle (in this case, the triceps), but to also work connective tissue, which ultimately can be a limiting factor in the amount of weight you lift.

INCLINE DUMBBELL TRICEPS EXTENSION BRANDON JOHNSON 
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:22

Set up a bench with a moderate incline. The idea here is to fully extend your arms at the top of the movement and exercise through a full range of motion through the elbow joint.

Key Training Tip: When you bring the dumbbells down to your chest, actually let the weights touch just briefly on your chest before starting the next rep. This forces you to start each rep from a dead stop while allowing you to train through the longest range of motion possible. Keep your upper arms locked in place.

SEATED UPRIGHT VARIATION OF THIS MOVEMENT

Courtesy of Kelechi Opara

SEATED UPRIGHT VARIATION KELECHI OPARA 
WATCH THE VIDEO - 0:16

This variation keeps the stimulus on the muscle for the entire set because the weights don't touch your body at the bottom of each rep. I get a little bit of shoulder action here, but it can be reduced if you keep your upper arms locked in place.

7 Best Triceps Exercises You're Not Doing

The press-down is a staple movement for triceps—I've probably done more than 70,000 of them over the years—and they'll definitely add size to your arms. To keep growing, however, you have to bring fresh exercises into your training or make tweaks to your favorite moves. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research suggested that changing exercises is more important than loading schemes in improving muscular strength.1

To give you more options, we've enlisted Florida-based trainer Nick Tumminello, NSCA-CPT, owner of Performance University, and author of "Strength Training for Fat Loss, and Building Muscle and Performance." He's also a master at tweaking exercises, as you already know if you've read his articles on Bodybuilding.com or tried the True Muscle trainer he helped design.

So what's his solution? Using subtle tweaks to change the "point of maximal loading" of many common elbow-extension movements and multijoint exercises. "You can create maximal tension at different points along the ROM of any given movement," Tumminello explains. "This is easily done by adjusting the basic angles in exercises you commonly do."

As a comparison, Tumminello gives the example of transitioning from the preacher curl to a standing curl; it's a different angle that loads the muscle maximally at a different point. Here are some examples of how to work the same magic for the backs of your arms!

1

ANGLED SINGLE-ARM OVERHEAD EXTENSION

Overhead extensions can be done with two hands or one, but for this version, which hammers the long head of the triceps, you'll do it unilaterally while side-lying on an incline bench. "It's basically the same exercise you do standing, but with a side lean.

ANGLED SINGLE-ARM OVERHEAD EXTENSION

By leaning, you change the point of maximal loading because your upper arm is no longer perpendicular to the ground," says Tumminello. "It's more angled over, which creates peak tension a little further into the contraction. You get an even better stretch when you do that as well."

Key training tip: Keep your upper arm in the same plane as the angle of the bench; if you keep it perpendicular to the floor, the point of maximal loading is too similar to the standing position, which defeats the purpose.

2

DECLINE-BENCH SKULLCRUSHER

You may have heard of or seen this movement. But have you tried it? Probably not. "Skullcrushers, whether using dumbbells or an EZ-bar, done off a decline bench aren't crazy new, but most people still don't include them," says Tumminello. "You're just changing the angle, and by doing so, changing the point of maximal loading. That's how you get new stimulus out of classic bodybuilding exercises."

DECLINE-BENCH SKULLCRUSHER

Key training tip: Your upper arm should remain perpendicular to your torso, not the floor, as you adjust the angle of the bench. You can use multiple decline positions to slightly alter the point of emphasis each time. Of course, you could try it with an incline as well.

3

INCLINE CLOSE-GRIP BENCH PRESS

The close-grip bench press is a tried-and-true way to add some intensity to the start of an arm workout. You can move heavier loads with it than almost any other triceps move, but you're definitely not limited to a flat bench. As with the decline skullcrusher, you can use an incline bench to provide new stimulus.

INCLINE CLOSE-GRIP BENCH PRESS

Key training tip: Keep your arms perpendicular to your torso, not the floor, to reap the benefits of the incline bench. Again, with adjustable benches, you can utilize multiple incline positions, each just a bit different from the others.

4

CABLE SKULLCRUSHER

While most of us do skulls with free weights, switching over to cables offers a distinct change: Instead of working against gravity, the line of pull is coming from down and to the side when you use lower cables. You can even adjust the height of the pulley to alter the angle as well.

CABLE SKULLCRUSHER

Key training tip: Try performing this cable move on an incline or decline bench.

5

CABLE KICK-BACK

As with the skullcrusher, using a cable changes the angle of pull, keeping tension on the muscle from the beginning of the range of motion to the end. Start by positioning the cable at its lowermost position, then try different angles over time.

CABLE KICK-BACK

In addition, if you take off the handle and grasp the rubber ball on the cable between your thumb and index finger, you can use a neutral hand position, where the lateral head gets most of the work. Supinate a little more and you'll have an underhand grip, which shifts the emphasis more to the medial head.

Key training tip: If you drop your elbow as you lower the weight, this single-joint movement becomes a multijoint one, which takes stress off the triceps. Keep that upper arm up beside your body for the duration of the set.

6

PUSH-UP LOCK-OFF

Tumminello says this is one of his favorites. Start in a push-up position with one hand elevated slightly, such as on an aerobic step, and the other hand on the floor. Descend in the normal manner, and then come up.

PUSH-UP LOCK-OFF

Here's where it departs from a normal push-up: You're going to continue the elbow extension of the elevated hand until your arm is fully extended, which brings your lower hand completely off the floor. "That dramatically increases the workload on the triceps of the working arm, not only because it's stabilizing your shoulder, but also because it's maintaining your body position," explains Tumminello. "There's even a bit of core work involved as you maintain your body alignment."

Key training tip: "You can perform this with either a Reebok step or a small medicine ball, though I'd go no higher than about an 8-pound ball," Tumminello says. Using a medicine ball is more difficult than the step bench because it's more unstable. Also, putting your feet up on a bench increases the workload done by the upper-body musculature even more.

7

SINGLE-ARM REVERSE-GRIP CABLE CONCENTRATION PUSH-DOWN

The name is a mouthful, but the move itself isn't too complicated. Think of it as a single-arm cable concentration curl, only done in reverse.

SINGLE-ARM REVERSE-GRIP CABLE CONCENTRATION PUSH-DOWN

You can perform this medial-head-emphasis movement standing, or seated with the working arm pressed against your inner thigh for greater isolation. Either way, it's definitely one for the end of your workout, because you won't be able to use much weight.

Key training tip: Use the top pulley position for the cable. If you're using a bench, you may need to adjust it to ensure your triceps stay pressed against your inner thigh. Don't be afraid to do some forced reps with your free hand at the end of your set.

Jim Stoppani's 3 Lower-Body Quick Fixes

Lagging leg development got you down? Fine-tune your quad, hamstring, and calf training with these fast fixes from Jim Stoppani, PhD!

We tend to focus on the big picture when it comes to training legs: big lifts with big weights that hit the biggestamount of muscle mass. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, so keep doing your big lifts to stimulate growth in the largest muscles of the lower body—the quads, glutes, and hams.

But every now and then, it's a good idea to focus on the finer points of these muscle groups, especially if your muscular development is lagging in some key areas.

I've identified three such areas in the lower body that seem to be problematic for many trainees: the quadriceps "teardrop," the inner hamstrings, and the outer calves. If any one of these areas is troubling you, here's your chance to troubleshoot and grow!

TROUBLE SPOT 1 QUADRICEPS TEARDROP (INNER QUAD)

Fashion trends seem to say that board shorts are here to stay, but that doesn't mean the lower quads aren't visible when wearing a pair. One area that often remains visible is the vastus medialis (teardrop) muscle that sits just above the knee on the inner side of the leg. There are a number of exercises and techniques you can do to place more focus on this area.

First, don't go as deep on barbell squats when you're looking to bring up the teardrop. Several studies have found that when the range of motion is shortened (stopping just short of parallel), the focus of the lift shifts more to the quads and less to the hamstrings and glutes.1

FASHION TRENDS SEEM TO SAY THAT BOARD SHORTS ARE HERE TO STAY, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE LOWER QUADS AREN'T VISIBLE WHEN WEARING A PAIR.

Of course, this presents a dilemma: Keep going low on your squats and sacrifice teardrop development, or shorten the range of motion and lose glute and hamstring strength? I say don't sacrifice anything—have the best of the both worlds! Alternate every other squat workout between using heavy weight with a shortened range of motion and moderate weight going full depth.

Exercises that specifically target the teardrop are leg presses and leg extensions, where your feet are turned outward during execution.2 Make sure you include both of these exercises in your routine on a regular basis if lower-body aesthetics are important to you.

TROUBLE SPOT 2 INNER HAMSTRINGS

When most guys think of hamstrings, they think there's only one muscle back there. But while the biceps femoris makes up the majority of your hamstring mass, especially the outer area, there are actually three different muscles that comprise the hammies.

The other two are the semitendinosus and semimembranosus, which make up the inner hamstrings. If you spend most of your workouts doing lying leg curls, as many people do, your outer hamstrings likely overshadow your inners.

WHEN DOING LYING LEG CURLS, TURNING YOUR FEET IN FURTHER SHIFTS THE FOCUS TOWARD THE INNER HAMS.

To fix this imbalance, start including Romanian deadlifts in your ham workouts, which help build overall mass—especially toward the hip joint—as well as seated leg curls, which research suggests place more emphasis on the semitendinosus and semimembranosus than the biceps femoris.3 Also, when doing lying leg curls, turning your feetin further shifts the focus toward the inner hams.

TROUBLE SPOT 3 OUTER CALVES

There's no secret that calves are a tough muscle group to bring up. While many blame their genetics for poor calf development, it's often truly a case of poor work ethic when it comes to puny lower legs. If you consistently put in the work, your calves will respond!

STANDING CALF RAISE

That said, even guys who have decent calf size find that the medial gastrocnemius (inner calf head) is more developed than the outer head (lateral gastrocnemius). This makes sense, as one study from Armstrong Atlantic State University found that the inner calf head is stimulated more than the outer head during a standard calf raise, where the toes are pointed straight ahead.4

Fortunately, the same study that turning the toes in while doing calf raises placed more focus on the outer head. So, place your feet about hip-width apart with your toes turned in toward each other as much as possible, and then have a cow with your calf raises!

BACK WITH BROCK: LESNAR'S PULL DAY WORKOUT (WWE)

What sort of exercising does it take to get in form for a return to expert wrestling? We requested WWE and MMA superstar Brock Lesnar for his pull-day workout.

workout
units
REPS
huge-Grip Pullup 5 10
Pullup five 10
slender Grip Pullup 5 10
Weighted Pullup 1 20
Seated Cable Row 4 12
Benvoer Row four 12
Barbell Curl four 12
Deadlift four 6
*Lesnar wears a weighted belt with a 45-pound plate. He gives himself 3 minutes to perform 20 overall reps.

pass returned TO THE WRESTLING guide >>

Building mounds of new lean muscle means hitting the weights hard. This month-long program will have you doing just that.

It’s a lofty aim: advantage 10 kilos of muscle in only one month. while such outcomes are aggressive and can’t continue on the equal torrid price indefinitely, we’ve visible firsthand people who’ve observed our mass-gaining packages and reached double digits in 4 quick weeks, averaging profits of two-three pounds every week. believe us, it could be carried out. however if there’s one thing the sort of ambitious goal desires, it’s an ambitious training and nutrients method. In regard to nutrients, don’t even think about taking that element gently. you may exercise session all you want, but in case you don’t ingest good enough calories and macronutrients, you gained’t build muscle. What and while you eat is paramount in your outcomes, and you’ll locate all you need to recognise about gaining mass in a quick amount of time in our bulking diet meal plan.

GET massive NOW!
 gain 10 pounds in a Month: meals selection thumbnailGAIN 10 kilos IN A MONTH: food selection
 upload Muscle without fat: The easy Bulk That Works thumbnailADD MUSCLE, SUBTRACT fat: THE clean BULK THAT WORKS
 five guidelines for Gaining Mass thumbnail5 regulations FOR GAINING MASS
First up, however, is training. Our two-phase program is designed to build muscle via the right stability of mass-building sporting activities, enough quantity and intensity-boosting strategies. It’s time to get started out in your subsequent 10 kilos.

WEEKS 1-2: HEAVY HITTER
the first  weeks of the program are all approximately lifting heavy with mass-building compound sporting events. For the entirety but abs and calves, reps fall in the 6-eight range; for those aware of doing units of 8-12, this indicates going heavier than normal. There are only a few isolation exercises throughout this segment for chest, lower back, shoulders and legs because the emphasis is on transferring as an awful lot weight as feasible to add strength and size.

The volume right here isn’t excessive. You’ll do eleven sets total for huge muscle agencies (the one exception being shoulders, for which you’ll do 15) and train every bodypart as soon as every week. cause being, to percent on lots of mass you need adequate recovery time. Doing endless sets in every exercising can easily positioned you in a catabolic (muscle-wasting) state wherein lean tissue is damaged down, not built up. Gaining 10 kilos of muscle in the sort of quick period calls for the proper stability of ok quantity to relaxation and recuperation.

The four-day break up pairs a massive bodypart (chest, returned, shoulders, quads/hams) with one or two smaller muscle groups (tri’s, bi’s, traps, calves, abs) in every workout. This facilitates ensure that you’re fresh when doing your heaviest compound sports.

WEEKS 3-4: depth boost
the second one 1/2 of this system is all approximately maximizing size with slightly higher reps and an emphasis on intensity. Rep degrees move up to ten-12 for most sporting events, which is good for selling muscle hypertrophy (growth). usual extent increases slightly for the duration of these  weeks, mainly due to the addition of isolation sports which you’ll carry out before compound moves on your chest, returned, shoulders and legs. referred to as pre-exhaustion, this method dramatically will increase exercising intensity. You fatigue the main target muscle with an isolation exercising, then hit it on this fatigued state with a compound circulate, which if carried out right will cause your essential muscle failing before help muscle tissues provide out. (for example, for chest the dumbbell flye hits the p.c. at once, so your triceps shouldn’t grow to be being the weak link and reason the termination of the set during the bench press).

This phase continues to hire a four-day break up, however bodyparts are paired in a different way - namely, chest and again are skilled on the equal day (Day 1), as are biceps and triceps (Day four). that is little extra than a method of converting matters up, giving your muscle tissue a slightly specific stimulus to spark new muscle increase. every exercising consists of drop units to growth depth, however for best one set per bodypart, on the way to keep away from overtraining and muscle catabolism.

As a parting notion, we will’t emphasize enough the importance of consistency and staying targeted. Your exercises shouldn’t be -hour affairs - every visit to the fitness center wishes to be rapid-paced and extreme. With that as your guide and following the heavy-obligation blueprint laid out here, we are able to’t promise it’ll be easy, but the effects ought to be really worth every drop of sweat. just assume, 10 extra muscular kilos may be a mere month away.

THE BUILD MUSCLE, STAY LEAN MEAL PLAN

Bulking up: It’s a frightening notion for many guys on the gym as it seems like there’s usually a string connected. all of us desires to add lean mass, however—and it’s a massive but—a lot of us don’t like the idea of gaining bodyfat, whilst little as multiple pounds, which is the norm with most mass-gaining meal plans. severely, what’s the point of gaining 20 or 30 kilos if a terrific part of that is fat? If you could’t see the muscle you’ve introduced, is it even well worth having? In this case, we are saying no, that is why we provide you with the gear you want to add muscle while keeping, not increasing, your current stage of bodyfat.

The query: How do I bulk up without adding unwanted kilos of fat?

the solution: via being careful, unique and paying close interest to meals timing.

clever boom
constructing muscle requires an increase in calories; this is, to gain weight you need to consume greater energy than you burn each day. but if you move overboard and consume too much, you’ll kick-start the fats-storing procedure. So the secret is to eat simply enough to facilitate the muscle-gaining system but now not so much that you’ll add fats along side it.

One way to do that is through controlling portion sizes at mealtime. For most food (now not consisting of postworkout), purpose to get forty-60 grams of protein and forty-eighty grams of carbs, depending on your size; bigger men weighing extra than, say, 225 pounds will shoot for the higher cease. The meal plan on the subsequent pages gives a guide to precise food quantities on the way to get you to these gram targets. nutritional fats have to be as low as viable, except for healthy fats (from nuts, olive oil, fatty fish), which could amount to five-10 grams in line with meal.

TIMING is key
Meal timing is the other key to staying lean even as bulking up. while you devour now not best supports mass profits however also performs a pivotal position in controlling bodyfat degrees. if you’re seeking to gain simplest quality mass, boom the dimensions of your food at breakfast and after education. these are the two times of day whilst muscles crave extra calories and nutrients—at breakfast because you’re nutritionally depleted after a night’s sleep, and put up-exercise because the careworn muscle groups are in dire need of replenishment to jump-start the restoration method. imparting the frame with what it could placed to apply for the duration of those home windows allows most suitable boom and continues bodyfat degrees down.

In short, clever increase—muscle sans bodyfat—is contingent on manipulating calorie consumption. sure, you need to devour greater to advantage mass, however while you eat extra can decide whether you’ll advantage fats or muscle. in case you stick to a big breakfast and a sizable post-schooling meal and frivolously divide your other meals into smaller quantities, you may increase your overall caloric consumption, ensuring that the ones more energy go to the muscle tissues once they want them.

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company

Courtesy of The Weinstein employer

five months. nearly half of a 12 months to maximum of us, but in Gyllenhaal's thoughts he became lacing up as a foster kid with over half of his existence spent in education. He become chasing a decade-huge deficit of cultivated capacity.

"I determined to teach two times an afternoon because I knew if I educate for five months, twice an afternoon, it'd make that ten months," he explains. "i used to be simply continuously like, 'How do i am getting more time in? How do I learn more?' It became kind of a dream in a manner. You get to study a skill. You get to be trained by means of folks that are specialists who really need you to be in reality appropriate."
related: How Hollywood is building a bigger action Hero
the first promo nonetheless of the results stuck fire on Twitter and movie websites. The greasy serpentine Leo Bloom of Nightcrawler was long gone, wolfed through a two hundred-pound behemoth of raging, stacked-up homicide that was supposedly Jake Gyllenhaal. The trade seemed in a single day, but it wasn't. It was within the day, every day, for no less than six hours.

"the primary a part of the day was all method stuff, all angles, studying how to throw punches and footwork. Stuff that wasn't exerting your self to an area in which you have been throwing up, and the second a part of the day turned into getting your self into physical form," he says. "occasionally we might flip them, but it turned into getting equipped for sparring and getting ready for the bodily factors of the job."

the extreme needs of the time table done  functions: burn years of important muscle reminiscence in a brief time frame, and circumstance the warring parties for the sensible task of capturing the fight scenes that could drag on for 8 hours.
related: The most genuine Boxing movies

"The complete expert fight is 36 mins," explains 50 Cent, with emphasis. "while filming, you are preventing, prevent, reduce, and movement. stop, reduce, and action. again, over and over and over. perhaps only I realize, but i'm pronouncing he's gotta be worn-out as a motherfucker. i am tired looking you!" 50 brought firsthand revel in to playing Gyllenhaal's manager, Jordan. Having run (as a minimum till lately) his own fight promotions outfit SMS, he would not deliver endorsements lightly, and he does not discuss the megastar's "depth" in coded language. The willpower is what endeared Gyllenhaal to him most.

"he is hard himself in a different manner," 50 Cent says. "he's doing what he loves, but he is difficult himself. He should do that movie half of as appropriate as he became bodily… however he become going for walks five miles every morning before he got here to set."