The Best and Worst Tricep Exercises. According To Science.

Today I want to bring to you potentially the single best tricep exercise for muscle growth according to science.

I also want to bring you the most pointless one ever seen in the gym (although it can be improved with one adjustment).

There are plenty of pointless movements done for various muscles and purposes…even though they have no purpose. Bosu ball squats and cable balanced squats anyone? How about that exercise where you hold a plate between the plam your hands and “bench it”? Yes, all pointless, but for another issue… Today’s will focus solely on tricep training.

IN THIS ISSUE:

• 🤓 Triceps 101.

• ✅ The Best Tricep Exercise For Muscle Growth

• ❌ The Worst Tricep Exercise For Muscle Growth

• ✍️ Key Takeaways & Practical Applications + Sample Program

THE NEW BICEPS
Triceps 101

Correctly termed “triceps brachii”, this muscle is located in the posterior section of your arm often appears in the shape of a horseshoe. The Triceps have three heads to the muscle:

1. The Lateral Head: lies on the outside and attaches to the humerus.

2. The Long Head: lies on the inside and attaches at the top to the scapula (shoulder blade).

3. The Medial Head: lies below the other two heads (it’s visible on either side nearest the elbow, however is the least visible of the triceps heads) and also attaches at the top to the humerus, below the lateral attachment.

💡 The fact that the long head is the only one that originates from the scapula (also acting on the shoulder joint) is why you may feel your tricep working when doing straight arm lat pulldowns or dumbbell pullovers.

If you want bigger arms, you better start prioritizing them with the correct movements, as the triceps make up around 70% of your total arm mass.

If you want a bigger bench and more pressing strength, triceps play an important role. We have previously covered the relationship between muscle size and strength, but here’s a quick recap:

GROW BABY, GROW
The Best Tricep Exercise For Muscle Growth

What makes an exercise or movement a good choice for hypertrophy?

✅ Allows micro loading - (small weight increases)
✅ Allows a full range of motion
✅ Has a good strength curve
✅ Stable movement
✅ Failure is reached with the target muscle and not another

Now, there are plenty of excellent choices for your training program, e.g. Dips, Close Grip Bench Press, Skull Crushers, Pushdowns…

However, a recent study, comparing two popular choices when it comes to tricep training, has found a winner and may offer the best “bang for your buck” when it comes to time in the gym vs results.

A Study published in the European Journal of Sport Science by (Maeo et al., 2023) from the Ritsumeikan University and the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Japan, compared performing cable tricep extensions with the arm in the overhead position or performing them with the arm in a neutral position (a standard tricep pushdown). The Study involved 21 subjects and lasted 12 weeks. Each subject performed both movements, with one arm allocated to overhead and the other to neutral. The 12 week program included 5 sets of 10 repetitions each arm at 70% of there 1RM, twice per week. The results showed that tricep growth was substantially greater in the overhead group, even though the subjects used less load on the overhead movement. The Triceps long head grew 28.5% vs 19.6% in favour of the overhead group, and the whole Triceps Brachii grew 19.9% vs 13.9% also in favour of the overhead group.

An important note from the study was that both movements increased strength in the subjects equally.

This study adds to the growing body of evidence that training a muscle at long muscle lengths promotes superior hypertrophy results.

A similar study, this time looking at hamstring training found similar results. (Maeo et al., 2020), compared the effects of seated vs lying hamstring curls, finding that training the hamstring using the seated variation to be superior than prone at causing muscle growth, (+14% vs +9%). Seated hamstring curls train three out of the four heads of the hamstrings at longer muscle lengths than lying hamstring curls. The interesting result here from the study was that the one head that isn’t lengthed in either exercises (the short head of the biceps femoris) experience the same muscle growth between both exercises.

So the muscles that were lengthed experienced more growth, and the one that wasn’t lengthened, experienced the same growth.

POINTLESS
The Worst Tricep Exercise For Muscle Growth

Well here it is, the worst tricep exercise you can do and are wasting your time with…

The Dumbbell Kick Back. Seen still, all over the world with people leaning on the dumbbell rack and grunting out pointless reps.

Sure it will stimulate the triceps to a degree, but there are just so many better options for you to incorporate I don’t see why you would waste your time doing them.

However, not all hope is lost. It can be improved if you still want to keep it in your program. Maybe you enjoy doing them, afterall, adherence is #1 when it comes to your success in fitness, and enjoyment helps adherence.

Let’s look at it logically: The Dumbbell Kickback 👇

1. The start position has no tension on the triceps, the dumbbell effectively just hangs. We want tension throughout the range of motion.

2. The kickback does not offer the ability to train the triceps at long muscle lengths.

3. It doesn’t match the strength curve of the muscle by providing the most resistance at the weakest range of the movement.

4. It provides a smaller range of motion as compared to other more optimal tricep exercises choice’s. (Once you bring the dumbbell back to that start roughly 90°, if you take the dumbbell past this angle, you're just doing a weird curl variation with no active tension on the triceps).

Want a better alternative? Simply do them with a cable stack.

The “kickback” isn’t inherently a bad movement, just the use of a dumbbell is a poor choice of equipment and as I stated, there are better uses of your time spent in the gym.

Although this still doesn’t allow for training the triceps at long muscle lengths, Electromyography (EMG) studies have shown the kickback, at the top (end) of the movement, is where the long head of the tricep experiences maximal contraction when compared to other common tricep movements, (Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies. 2000). This is because the kickback, offers a variation most tricep exercises do not, which is performing the movement with your arm behind your body.

The cable intervention does solve one problem however…

When performed with a cable stack, the kickbacks strength curve limitation is no longer a factor as the cable will keep tension on the tricep throughout the whole movement also increasing its productive range of motion similar to that of a tricep pushdown. Plus you can make use of that maximal contraction.

JUST FOR YOU
Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

• Overhead tricep extension variations, according to science, produce greater hypertrophy results due to the lengthened position of the tricep (19.9% vs 13.9%).

• Dumbbell kickbacks are pointless. Sorry if you love them… they are. If you still want to do them, use a cable at least.

• The kickback position, with the arm stretched behind the body allows for maximal tricep long head contraction. (Although I have no scientific evidence suggesting that contributes to better muscle growth)

Just because overhead extensions beat pushdowns, doesn’t mean pushdowns are pointless. Subjects still grew muscle in the study cited.

The study above used a single arm cable overhead tricep extensions. You could also do:

1. Dumbbell Overhead Extensions

2. Single Arm Dumbbell Overhead Extensions

3. Bilateral (both arms) Cable Overhead Extensions (rope or bar attachments)

On top of this I’d suggest having 2-3 movements for your triceps in a training block. This will help with staleness of any given exercise and maybe help push through plateaus in weight or repetition progress when a certain movement stalls. Plenty of options to choose from, including the 3 above:

1. Close Grip Bench Press

2. Dips

3. Pushdowns (various handle attachments)

4. Skull Crushers (Barbell / EZ Bar / Dumbbell)

Each are solid options and have their merits, with some being more sport specific such as the close grip bench press.

My personal favourite options are the close grip bench press, dips, skullcrushers and cable overhead tricep extension with an EZ attachment.

Sample triceps workout 👇

Can be done on its own, or incorporated into any pushday or tricep specific part of a training session.

1. Dips (weighted if necessary) - 3 sets x 8-10 repetitions (2 RIR) (2s Eccentric) (3 Minutes Rest)

2. Cable Overhead Tricep Extension - 3 sets x 10-12 repetitions (1-2 RIR) (2s Eccentric) (2 Minutes Rest)

3. Barbell Skullcrushers - 3 sets × 12-15 repetitions (1-2 RIR) (2s Eccentric) (90s Rest)

💡 2s Eccentric means, the lowering phase of a lift. 2s is roughly equal to simply actively controlling the weight or your body weight in the lowering portion.