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ON THE BACKSIDE of each of your upper arms is an unsung hero. With the right amount of consistent, balanced strength training, you can give it the attention it deserves—and in doing so, stretch the limits of your shirtsleeves and take your strength performance (both in and out of the gym) to an entirely new level. That hero is your triceps muscle, and it accounts for two-thirds of your upper arms’ mass without taking the same amount of acclaim as its antagonist muscle, the biceps.
Even if you’re a dumbbell curl king, chances are that your triceps don’t go neglected in your workouts. Even if you’ve rarely target the muscle group directly, they likely get enough attention to flare into a pleasing lobster claw shape when flexed. That’s because they’re involved in nearly every pushing exercise you do.
Each time you bang out reps of the bench press, grunt through sets of the pushup, or perform the shoulder press to technical failure, you also hammer these unsung heroes of the upper arm, since they act as synergists (assisting muscles) to the muscle group you’re mostly focused on training. And if you do a handful of targeted triceps exercises on top of all that (as you will in our Ultimate Arms Recomp training plan) you can maximize their growth.
That’s where we stumble onto the matter of how much time and effort do you actually need to sink into the triceps, and how often do they need to be the main event with dedicated isolation? How many exercises do you really need, and can you do too many? Decades of anecdotal evidence combined with recent research have provided a definitive answer.
How Many Triceps Exercises Should You Do?
The short answer is three dedicated exercises per week. If you’re currently following a muscle group split routine, those three moves can be tackled easily during your arms day, when you’re likely doing an equal number of exercises to maximize the growth of your biceps.
For most muscles, three targeted exercises per week would be the minimum number required for optimal gains, according to research, with the sweet spot closer to six exercises (or about 20 total sets)—but your triceps aren’t like most muscles.
Remember, they’re critical to almost every pushing exercise you do, so you’re also working them in compound exercises that target your chest and shoulders (bench presses, overhead presses, even pushups). As a result, doing more than three isolation exercises per week for your triceps often amounts to overkill.
What Triceps Exercises Work Best?
Knowing you should do three targeted triceps exercises per week for optimal gains, the question becomes “What should those exercises be?”
Following a solid program will eliminate the guesswork—but if you want to understand the principles behind a comprehensive plan to hit all aspects of the muscle group, make sure you do one exercise from each of these three categories.
Maximum Load
The elbow can be a finicky joint, straining all too easily when loaded excessively in isolation exercises such as the skull crusher. That’s where compound exercises—like the close-grip bench press—can not only help, but shine. The narrow hand position will increase the emphasis on your triceps while still allowing you to lift heavier loads than you would in most isolation moves. The result: greater muscle recruitment, time under tension, and (ultimately) growth.
Example: Close-Grip Bench Press
How to Do It:
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Start by getting into the proper bench press position on a flat bench. Drive your shoulders into the bench, squeezing your abs and glutes and driving your heels into the floor.
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Reach up to the bar and grasp it with your hands just narrower than shoulder-width apart. Don’t use the knurling on the bench as a reference; your exact grip should be dependent on your own comfort. Turn the pits of your elbows in to “break the bar.”
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Once you’ve unracked the weight on your own or with a spotter’s lift-off, lower the weight down. Keep your elbows close to your torso and lower the bar to your upper ribcage, rather than the chest. Your elbows should form an L shape with a vertical forearm; they shouldn’t flare out to the sides of your torso.
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Press straight back up to the top of the movement, squeezing your triceps. Don’t bounce the weight off your chest.
Sets and reps: 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Maximum Extension
Think about the last time you performed a skull crusher or overhead extension. You felt a deep stretch in your triceps in the fully extended, elbows bent, bottom position of each rep, right? That’s what makes these exercises so powerful. You might have to use a slightly lighter load than you would in the close-grip bench press, but overcoming the mechanical disadvantage of that bottom position to return to the overhead (arms straight) starting position will hit the largest of your triceps’ three heads (i.e., long head) particularly hard.
Example: Lying Overhead Extension
How to Do It
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Grab a dumbbell, wrapping your thumbs around each other touching one side of the bell.
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Lie back on a bench, placing your head near the end of the bench.
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Squeeze your glutes and focus on driving your feet into the ground.
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Reach back as far as you can with the dumbbell. Be careful not to create a giant arch with your back—you don’t to turn this into a pullover. Instead, squeeze your abs tight and maintain tension with your glutes
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Begin to lower the dumbbell behind your head, driving your elbows toward the ceiling. Avoid flaring your elbows—keep your arms tight and close to your torso. Work to get a deep stretch at the bottom—the goal is to get your forearms perpendicular to the ground.
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Straighten your elbows to drive the weight up, moving your elbows forward into shoulder extension.
Sets and reps: 3 to 4 sets of 10 to 15 reps
Maximum Contraction
At the opposite end of the triceps exercise spectrum are those that facilitate full contraction of the muscle (i.e., when your arm is fully straight), such as the kickback and pressdown. Reserve these exercises for the end of your arms workout, as you can still reap maximum gains when fatigue forces you to use lighter loads. To avoid the biggest disadvantage of this type of movement (free weights don’t keep the target muscle under tension for most of the movement), opt for working with a cable machine instead.
Example: Cable Triceps Kickback
How to Do It:
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Start by taking a staggered stance. Do whatever you need to find a stable position here: use the track on the cable machine if yours has one, or grab onto the upper portion of the handle track, or keep your elbow on your thigh. Whichever you choose, ensure that your shoulders stay higher then your hips to protect the lower back.
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Grab onto the handle, and pull your elbow up and back slightly above your torso. Keep your upper arm to be parallel to the ground for the duration of the set.
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Straighten out the elbow without rocking or moving the upper arm. Squeeze at the top.
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Slowly lower the weight down, preferably for a two count negative, to complete the rep.
Sets and reps: 3 to 4 sets of 12 to 15 reps
Will Doing More Triceps Exercises Boost Your Gains?
Short answer: no. Just like the example of the biceps cited above, there will be diminishing returns if you keep hammering your tris with extra dedicated sets—especially if you’re already using the muscles within the rest of your routine to assist in all your pressing movements.
Yes, you can prioritize your arms as a muscle group for growth, but you’ll also want to make sure that you keep recovery in mind as you continue to train for hypertrophy. Think about all the ways you use your triceps indirectly, and avoid the junk volume trap.
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