The 5 Common Tricep Training Mistakes
Triceps are like the big brother with a blue-collar job, toiling in
anonymity, carrying their own workload and assisting others (chest and
shoulders). All the while, they’re overshadowed by their little brother
biceps the star athlete who grabs more attention without working as hard
(assisting only back). The key to this analogy is that tri’s are the
bigger muscles, despite their lagging reputation. In this article, we
tackle the five most common triceps blunders and lay out a course for
raising your tri’s to star status
Mistake #1: Not stressing all three heads
As the name suggests, your triceps have three heads: long (upper inside),
medial (lower inside) and lateral (outside).
The heads always work together, so it’s impossible to isolate one from
the others.
However, the angle of your arms changes the emphasis, stressing the heads
differently.
Too many bodybuilders are unaware of how various exercises hit their
tri’s, and thus they typically overemphasize their lateral heads and
underemphasize the long and medial heads
Solutions
When your arms are straight by your sides with an overhand or a parallel
grip (palms facing each other, also known as a neutral grip), the lateral
heads are worked most, as during conventional pushdowns
When your arms are straight by your sides with an underhand grip, the
medial heads are hit most.
Regardless of hand position, the medial heads also assist more on all
triceps lifts as the arms reach full extension.
To give your medial heads their due, consider adding reverse grip
pushdowns to your routine, and always squeeze out full contractions on
triceps exercises
When your elbows are moved in front of your body or overhead, the long
heads are targeted.
Overhead extensions are best for “going long,” so always include some
form of overhead tri extension in your routine
Mistake #2: Inefficient exercise order
No exercise order is incorrect, but some are less efficient.
Changing the order can shock your tri’s, and at times you may want to
pre-exhaust by doing, say, pushdowns before close-grip
benches.
However, begin most workouts with the exercises in which you can overload
your tri’s with the greatest resistance.
Do those first in your routine because that’s when you’re strongest
Solutions
Do compound lifts, such as dips or close-grip bench presses, first
Do two-arm, free-weight extensions next
Finish with unilateral (one arm) or cable exercises
You can change the preceding order on occasion, but stick to it for most
tri workouts
Mistake #3: Focusing too much on machines and cables
Many trainers rely too heavily on various pushdowns and cable extensions.
For example, it’s not uncommon for bodybuilders to include four sets of
both V-bar and rope pushdowns in the same workout, but these similar
exercises stress the triceps in nearly identical ways, emphasizing the
lateral heads
Solutions
Do a compound exercise (one that also involves the chest and shoulders)
in each tri workout.
Examples include close-grip bench presses, upright dips and bench
dips with your hands behind your back
Do at least one EZ-curl bar or dumbbell extension in each tri
workout.
Examples include lying EZ-curl bar triceps extensions, two-arm dumbbell
overhead extensions and one-arm dumbbell overhead extensions
If you do two push down exercises, one should be done with an overhand or
parallel grip (to emphasize the lateral heads) and the other should be
underhand (to emphasize the medial heads)
Mistake #4: Improper form
To focus the stress on your triceps, you need to keep your elbows locked
in place. The moment you start moving your elbows forward, backward or
outward, you shift some emphasis to your shoulders.
Doing so allows you to use more weight or crank out more reps, but if you
turn tri exercises into partial pullovers, you’re making it easier on your
triceps when you should be making it harder
Solutions
Lock your elbows in place for all reps until you reach
failure.
For pushdowns this is easy to do by pressing your elbows against your
sides and not allowing them to deviate from that position
After reaching failure with strict reps, you can then loosen your form to
eke out a few more reps.
Do this by moving your elbows forward during the negative half of the rep
and backward during the positive half.
Cheat as little as you must to keep the set going
Mistake #5: Overtraining
Out of all your body parts, triceps are the most prone to
overtraining.
This is in part because most bodybuilders know the tri’s are larger than
the bi’s, and in their quest for higher-caliber guns, they assume that if
they do 12 sets for bi’s they should crank out 18 for tri’s. Also–unlike
your bi’s, which help only during back workouts–your tri’s help when you
train chest (pressing movements or dips) and shoulders (pressing
movements).
If you train chest, shoulders and triceps on different days, they’re
getting a triple whammy, likely without enough time to recuperate between
workouts
Solutions
Triceps are relatively small muscles.
Generally, 12 sets will suffice.
If you do chest or shoulder pressing exercises earlier in the same
workout, consider doing even fewer sets because your tri’s get some work
locking out presses
Rest a minimum of 48 hours and ideally at least 72 hours between training
chest or shoulders and training triceps.
Arrange your workout split accordingly
Lessons Learned
Do exercises in each triceps workout that emphasize the long, lateral and
medial heads
Generally, do compound lifts first, two-hand free-weight lifts next and
finish with one-arm or cable exercises
Include free-weight exercises in each tri workout
Lock your elbows in place until you reach strict-rep failure
Typically, do no more than 12 sets per triceps workout, and always rest
at least two days between training chest or shoulders and training
tri’s
