Old School Triceps

Use all your muscle heads

The title should say it all. This is not an article about triceps kickbacks, isolation exercises or anything along those lines. The goal of this article is to teach you about the basic anatomy of the triceps in combination with the knowledge necessary to develop a triceps program that will increase your functional strength and speed.

The triceps consist of three separate muscle heads: the long muscle head, the middle muscle head and the lateral muscle head. The primary function of all three is to extend the elbow, with certain exercises loading the individual triceps heads differently. Below is a list of exercises that target the specific muscle heads:

Long triceps head

• Lying tricep press with a SZ bar
• Dumbbell overhead tricep press
• Overhead tricep press with a SZ bar

Medium tricep head

• Bench press with close grip
• Press behind the head
• Dumbbell press with rotation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sProng2aSFM)

Lateral tricep head

• Bench press with close grip
• Press behind the head
• Dumbbell tricep press lying down

All three tricep heads

• Lying tricep presses on the reverse incline bench with a SZ bar
• Dips on parallel bars
• Dips on a bench (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl8_opV0A0Y)

As you can see, most triceps exercises will be performed to a large extent by the middle and lateral triceps head. The long head of the triceps is most heavily loaded during exercises with a pre-stretch - such as exercises where the elbow is above the head (e.g. dumbbell overhead tricep presses). Training the long head of the triceps might be more necessary for a strongman competitor or someone who performs a lot of overhead presses, for example, whereas this might not be as crucial for powerlifters. A basic rule of thumb should be the following: If you can move more weight, then it's probably a more effective exercise. Heavy exercises such as close grip bench presses, dips, etc. should form the basis of your program.

Old school ways to bomb the triceps

If you go to the "fancier" gyms of today, you'll see a lot of guys with nice definition around their arms or visible muscle splits between their shoulder muscles, triceps and biceps. These guys might be able to bench press 7 kilos. In contrast, we're interested in strong, functional triceps - the kind of triceps that resemble big hunks of meat hanging from your arms. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say the following: "I've done cable tricep presses with virtually every type of grip, but my bench press weights just won't go up!" These people need to ditch the junk and go the old school route. If you're interested in improving your bench press or shoulder press performance, here are a few ideas to jumpstart your gains. I've split these exercises into press-based exercises and extension-based exercises.

Press based exercises

Press-based exercises are the equivalent of squats for the lower body. By using multiple muscle groups, you can increase the weight used and thereby increase the stimulus to the body. These are not isolation exercises - all of them also use the chest and shoulder muscles. However, these exercises take the emphasis off the surrounding muscles and let the triceps do most of the work.

Bench press with close grip

This exercise, in combination with dips, should be the backbone of your tricep program. Close grip bench presses are an excellent exercise as they mimic real world loads quite well. For example, when you perform bench presses, your arms are to the right and left of the midline of your body. However, when you press things in real life, your arms are usually close to your body. A great example is the outstretched arm in American football. The arm is close to the body to gain the greatest mechanical advantage. Even if you're not lying down in American football, close bench presses on the incline bench are an excellent exercise to improve extended arm strength because of the triceps involvement and the pressing angle. Another great thing is that this exercise can be performed in all the variations associated with bench presses. For example, you can perform close bench presses on a flat bench, incline bench or reverse incline bench. These options alone allow for a thorough bombardment of your triceps from several different angles.

Dips

Dips are another truly old school way to improve your strength. It seems like anything that uses body weight is taboo these days. Exercises like pull-ups and dips have been replaced by trendy machines designed to mimic the movement pattern. But why mimic a movement pattern when you can do it yourself without machines? Not only are these machines expensive, but they are not designed specifically for your body type, limb length ratio, strength curve, etc. Last time I checked, you didn't have to strap yourself in before pushing yourself up from a ledge like you have to do on a dips machine. So dips are another real life exercise because you are moving your own body weight (and hopefully a little more weight by using a dips belt or something similar). A quick note might be necessary for this exercise: While some trainers recommend a full range of motion movement with the forearms touching the biceps, I prefer to lower myself only until my forearms are parallel to the floor. Going lower, in my opinion, will only cause shoulder rotation, which could eventually lead to an injury. Remember that there are no bad exercises, only poor exercise execution.

Bench press on the reverse incline bench

Although this exercise has lost some of its luster over the last decade, the reverse incline bench press is an excellent exercise for increasing triceps strength. If you are a competition-level powerlifter, I think the reverse incline bench press is a better assistance exercise than the incline bench press because it better mimics the competition exercise. When bench pressing on the reverse incline bench, your chest is elevated and there is less shoulder rotation due to the angle. This is very similar to the bench press during competition, where a hollow back raises the chest and the range of motion is reduced (i.e. less shoulder rotation).
Here's another reason I think you should include bench presses on the reverse incline bench in your program. Think standing shoulder press, which emphasizes the shoulders and engages the triceps at the top of the movement. Now imagine that you are doing flat bench presses, which involve the chest, shoulders and triceps. And then you have bench presses on the reverse incline bench, which relies almost exclusively on the pecs and triceps. As the angle of your body decreases, the recruitment of the shoulders decreases and the involvement of the triceps increases. This is also the reason why people who suffer from shoulder problems can perform bench presses on the reverse incline bench and flat bench presses with minimal discomfort, while incline bench presses are quite painful.

JM Press (JM Press)

Even though this is a hybrid exercise, I have put JM Press (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09q-wob818M) in the category of pressing exercises because this exercise is definitely not a true isolation exercise. In this exercise, you use a close grip and lower the bar in a straight line to a point about 3 centimeters below your neck. Once you reach the lowest point of the movement, perform a movement like a tricep press back to the starting position. This exercise may be a little tricky at first, but it is very effective. In this context, it should perhaps be mentioned that the guy after whom this exercise was named, JM Blakely, bench pressed 320 kilos.

Exercises based on an extension

These are the exercises that isolate the triceps. The primary purpose of the triceps is to extend the arm, which is also the goal of our extension-based exercises.

Skull crusher (lying tricep press to forehead) and throat crusher (lying tricep press to neck) (with a SZ bar or barbell bar)

The first option is a fairly well-known exercise. It can be performed with either a barbell bar or a SZ bar. The SZ bar allows you to reduce the load on the wrists, but both are great exercises and are the best options if you want to perform a triceps isolation exercise. In the Throat Chrusher (lying tricep press towards the neck), you perform a Skull Crusher towards the neck. However, you should avoid dropping the bar onto your windpipe and dying, as many studies have shown that this can severely impair your strength and muscle development. The beauty of this exercise is that it emphasizes the base of the triceps near the elbow. You won't be able to use such a heavy weight in this exercise at first, but you should be able to increase your strength quickly. If your strength starts to wane in the middle of a set, then you can start to lower the bar back towards your face to finish the set and put more stress on your triceps. You can further increase the effectiveness of both of these exercises by performing them on a reverse incline bench. The reverse incline bench increases the involvement of all three triceps muscle heads compared to performing them on a flat bench.

Dumbbell Skull Crusher (lying tricep press with dumbbells towards the forehead)

This exercise was a nice change of routine - especially because regular tricep presses with a barbell can cause elbow problems. Combine reduced pain with an increased need to stabilize the weight through the use of dumbbells and you have a good isolation exercise for the triceps.

Overhead tricep press

Although I don't think these exercises are as good as lying tricep presses, overhead tricep press variations have the advantage of working the long head of the triceps muscle. By placing the long head of the triceps muscle in a stretched position, you will promote greater muscle soreness if you have not used this type of exercise for a while.

Dumbbell tricep press with elbows out

I'm not sure who came up with this exercise, but I know that Louie Simmons and Westside have been promoting this exercise for quite some time. They start this exercise on either a flat bench or incline bench with the dumbbells in a position similar to the top position on dumbbell presses. Instead of lowering the dumbbells as usual, bend your elbows and move the dumbbells up to your chest, keeping them above the center of your body throughout the movement. Then straighten your elbows and move the weight back to the starting position. (This video should clarify the exact execution of the exercise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHJLWYTJfzc)

Let's put it all together

Now that you have a pretty good idea of which exercises can really help you progress your triceps, we need to find a way to incorporate them into a training program. Ideally, there should be 48 to 72 hours of rest between workouts to promote recovery and supercompensation. In my training for powerlifting, I usually perform a heavy bench press followed 72 hours later by a bench press assistance workout. How you structure your workouts will determine what your tricep training should look like. I usually aim to do one press-based workout and one extension-based workout per week. For example, if you do heavy bench presses on Tuesdays, then you can do speed bench presses on Fridays. Your program could look like this:

Tuesday - heavy bench press

• Bench press, 5 x 3 @ 80%
• Throat crushers (lying tricep presses to the neck), 4 x 8

Friday - speed bench press training session

• Speed bench press (speed bench), 9 x 3 @ 40%
• Close bench press on a reverse incline bench, 5 x 5

After Tuesday's training session, your triceps should be pretty thoroughly exhausted after the heavy bench press, after which you give them the rest with an extension-based exercise. The speed bench press on Friday should not overly challenge your triceps, so you can attack them hard and heavy with a close bench press. If you don't perform speed training, another option you can use in the Friday training session is to go hard on your triceps with a close bench press as your first exercise. This is not the Weider prioritization principle, but just common sense: the exercise you do first will probably be the best one, as you are fresh and recovered. Train your triceps hard and watch your weights go up! Here's an example of someone training heavy bench press on Monday and overlapping exercises like floor presses, board presses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsALDmXKQgc) or heavy lockouts on Tuesday:

Monday - Bench Press Workout

• Bench Press, 3 x 8 @ 65%
• Dips, 4 x 8 (with additional weight)

Tuesday - bench press support training

• 3-Board Press, 2 x 2 @ 100% of maximum weight
• Dumbbell Tricep Press, 4 x 6

Since the heaviest day this week is Tuesday, we will perform our extension based exercises on that day. Therefore, Monday will be our day for heavy press based exercises. The last option is a three day program for bench press specialists or those who have a very good recovery ability. The breaks between training sessions will be on average 48 hours long.

Monday

• Bench press, 4 x 8
• Skull Crushers (triceps press lying to the forehead), 4 x 10

Wednesday

• Speed bench press, 9 x 3 o or
• Training on the rack, work your way up to heavy sets of 3 repetitions
• Tricep presses on the cable, 3 x 12

Friday

• Close bench press on the reverse incline bench, 4 x 8
• Dips with additional weight, 3 x 6

Monday's training session is our standard bench press training session combined with some additional tricep training. Wednesday is our speed bench press or rack training day and this is performed in combination with tricep presses on the cable pulley. The primary purpose of the cable tricep press is to get blood flowing to the muscles and prepare the body for the real tricep bombardment on Friday. The tricep press on Wednesday should not be performed with full effort, but rather to promote regeneration. After all, Friday is a real triceps adventure - which is also the reason why you get a 72-hour break until the next bench press workout on Monday. Keep in mind that these are just examples - so don't take them as set in stone. You know your own body better than anyone else. Some strength athletes' triceps are so weak that they have to perform press-based exercises every tricep training day to try and increase their strength. Try one of the templates above and see how it works for you.

Conclusion

The training world always comes back to where you started. Exercises and muscle groups that were forgotten in the eighties and nineties are coming back into fashion. Improving your triceps strength creates a synergistic effect that will also increase your bench press and overhead press strength. Use some of the exercises mentioned above and take your strength to the next level!

By Mike Robertson
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/old-school-triceps| 06/06/03