If a man wants bigger triceps, he can't just do press-downs. Too often, guys in the gym, maybe including you, kill their triceps at the cable pressdown station. Ten sets, fifteen sets, as many as it takes to make them hurt.
But what the pressdown-loving masses don't seem to realize is that this exercise focuses on the lateral (outer) head of the triceps. So if you only do that, the other two heads of your tri's won't grow as much as you want, and you won't get the kind of growth you want.
You can use different versions of this old favorite, as well as a few exercises and methods you're probably not doing that will help. Here is a complete plan, boiled down to five tips, that will help you build strong, well-balanced triceps in no time.
Triceps Pressdown Out
If you have to do pressdowns, do them the right way. Too many guys hold the bar like they are riding a motorcycle. This makes you push with your fingers, which not only puts stress on your hands and wrists (because your wrists often bend back), but also limits how much force you can put on the bar. The trick is to push with the bottoms of your hands. When you've mastered this move, you won't even need to wrap your fingers around the bar. You'll also find out how much more weight you can press down with. And, you guessed it, more overload means more growth in the triceps.There are two ways to build bigger triceps. First, there's the "I need to do more and train harder" school of thought, which says that the answer to your weaker body parts is always more intensity and volume. This strategy works to some extent, but the more you do, the less it helps and the more it hurts.
The other way of thinking is a little more intellectual. It means you have to break up the problem (small triceps) and work on it from different angles, building up each of the three heads separately and together, to get the most size and growth.
Since you probably already know about the first method, let's look at the second. First, we'll separate the triceps muscle into its three parts: the lateral, the medial, and the long heads. Even though it's less important to know where each one is on your arm, it's very important to know how to target and highlight each one.
We're going to pay most attention to the long head of the triceps, which is different from the other two heads in that it attaches above the shoulder joint. This is important because you can only stretch out the long head when your arm is raised above your head. Before a muscle can contract strongly, it must be fully stretched. So when your arms are above your head, you're really going for the long head.
Check out these 7 ways to strengthen your triceps long head and help your body grow as a whole.
Two times a week, work out your triceps
This is a good place to start, especially if the triceps are a smaller muscle group. As long as you don't increase the number of times you train your triceps for more than 6–8 weeks, training them twice a week can help them grow. This muscle group heals pretty quickly, so you only need 2-3 days off between workouts.
That said, working your chest on Mondays, shoulders on Tuesdays, and triceps on Wednesdays doesn't count as 2-3 days of rest because multijoint presses (which you do for both chest and shoulders) all involve extending your elbows, which means you're working your triceps three days in a row. When setting up your split, keep this in mind.
Dips and extensions of the triceps
When you do tris twice a week, you can't do shoulders or chest the day before or after arms. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to set up your split, but you do need to know about a few things.
One more tip: If you train your triceps twice a week, make sure that each workout is different so that the muscle fibers are worked in different ways. You could even make one of these routines a basic routine for building mass in your triceps as a whole, and focus the other on just overhead exercises.
Don't always add triceps exercises after chest or shoulders
You probably know how tired your triceps are after a good shoulder or chest workout. One way to make your triceps bigger is to train them right after one of the bigger push-day workouts. Put an end to them, so to speak.
This is a great idea that many bodybuilders use, but you could also do your second workout on a day when you only work your arms. Since the triceps won't already be tired, you'll be able to hit them with more energy and more weight, which is a great way to get the most out of your workout.
3. Choose a strong long-head move that builds mass
When it comes to working out, I really believe in two things: First, do exercises that use more than one joint before you do exercises that use only one joint. This is true even for a smaller muscle group like the triceps. Second, if you've been working out for a while and your progress has stopped moving forward, make small changes to your exercises so that they are just a little bit different from what you usually do to help your muscles grow.
Even though there are no overhead multijoint triceps exercises that directly target the long head, there is at least one good one in which your arms are perpendicular to your torso: the close-grip bench press, with a small change. Do the press on a bench that is slightly tilted in the Smith machine. Here, the long head isn't quite fully stretched, but it gets a little more stretch than it would on a flat bench, and the angle is different, hitting the muscle in a slightly different way.
Don't be afraid to use heavy weights when doing triceps exercises that use more than one joint. Aim for a weight that you can only do 8 reps with, and save the sets with more reps for the end of your workout when you want to get a final pump. If you can do 8 reps, you should lift more.
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