Muscular-Fitness

In this article I will cover the most popular and effective tricep exercises to add muscle to your triceps. It is ideal to perform tricep exercises once per week in the same way you should target all your other body parts also once per week. Some triceps exercises are more effective for adding muscle to your body faster than others but it is best to mix up your workouts using different triceps exercises each week. Although everyone likes to train their biceps, the triceps muscle comprises a higher percentage of your total arm size than your biceps.

The ultimate tricep exercise to build muscle fast is the lying triceps extension or sometimes referred to as the skullcrushers. This triceps exercise is best performed lying on a flat bench with an EZ curl or bent bar. Lay flat on the bench holding the bar with your arms out straight in front of your face. Lower the bar by bending your elbows and bringing the bar to the top of your head just slightly above your forehead but don’t let the bar hit your head, hence the name skullcrushers. To perform this particular tricep exercise properly you should keep your elbows tucked in as much as possible. Your elbows will naturally want to poke out to the side but concentrate on keeping them in to keep the resistance firmly on your tricep muscles. At the bottom of the movement when the bar is in the low position just above your forehead, just push the bar back up so it ends up back in the start position with arms straight pointing directly up and the bar in front of your face.

Close grip bench presses are another one of the excellent triceps exercises that are performed just like doing a standard bench press movement on a flat bench with a barbell however with this exercise you target the triceps by using a close grip. Hold your hands with a grip on the bar that allows a distance between your thumbs of about 10cm or 4 inches. Once again try to keep your elbows tucked in close to your body to keep the pressure on the triceps.

One of the most common yet effective tricep exercises is the tricep pushdowns on the cable. Take an upside down V bar and connect it to a high pulley and push directly down on the handle till your arms are out straight. Then bring the bar up to the start position where your forearms should be parallel to the floor.

Using the same cable another variation on the tricep pushdown is to use a rope with a large rubber stopper on each end. This triceps exercise is particularly effective at targeting the outer triceps when you push down but instead of holding your triceps in to the side, for this tricep exercise you should keep your elbows poking out to the side when you push down and then your let your arms come back up to the top position with your forearms once again parallel to the ground.

Another one of the popular and common tricep exercises that Arnold loved to perform was the triceps kickback. Hold a dumbbell in one hand and rest your other hand on the dumbbell rack in front of you and lean forward. With the dumbbell hold it at your waist with your thumb facing forward then kickback or push the dumbbell back and straighten your arm. Your arm should be pointing at a 45 degree angle to the floor when your arm is straight back and then bring your arm back to the waist position.

These are some of the most effective tricep exercises that you can perform in any gym. There are a number of different variations on these basic movements that you can experiment with but by choosing 2-3 different tricep exercises each week on your triceps training day and perform about 3 sets of 8-10 reps per set you will be on your way to some serious tricep muscle growth.