Triceps Workouts
Weight Training Advice
make you stronger on chest exercises such as the bench press and shoulder exercises such as the military press. The triceps are a larger muscle group than the biceps, so despite the fact that most weight trainers tend to focus more on biceps workouts to build arm size because they're easier to show off, triceps workouts will actually help you more in getting big arms.
Triceps workouts are best performed in a weight training split routine on the same day as your chest and shoulder workouts as part of a push-pull routine or on the same day as your other arm muscles (shoulders, biceps). If you train your triceps after chest and shoulders they'll already be warmed up nicely since they assist on most of the major exercises for those muscles. If you do your triceps workout after doing your shoulders and biceps you'll be warmed up a bit from the shoulder exercises and get a little padding when you do certain exercises due to your pumped up biceps. Either way you set up your routine for your triceps training should work - experiment to see wich one you feel more comfortable with. If you do your triceps workouts on different days than your chest or shoulder workouts make sure not to train those body parts during your next workout because your triceps likely won't be completely recovered and you may not be able to lift as much.
The following sample triceps workout is broken up into seperate light, medium, and heavy workouts.
Light triceps workout (16-20+ reps per set)
1-2 sets of close grip or reverse grip bench presses
1-2 sets of triceps extensions (standing, seated, lying, or cable)
1-2 sets of different triceps extension exercise
1-2 sets of cable triceps pushdowns
1-2 sets of rope pushdowns
1-2 drop sets of tricep exercise of your choice
Medium triceps workout (12-15 reps per set)
2-3 sets of close or reverse grip benches
2-3 sets of triceps extensions
2-3 sets of different triceps extension exercise
1-2 sets of cable triceps pushdowns
1-2 sets of rope pushowns
1-2 drop sets
Heavy triceps workout (8-12 reps per set)
2-3 sets of close / reverse grip benches
3-4 sets of triceps extensions
2-3 sets of different extensions exercise
2-3 sets of cable triceps pushdowns
2-3 sets of rope pushdowns
2-3 drop sets
Even though it may not look like enough sets per workout in this triceps routine, if you do all of the sets to positive failure it should be more than enough.
If you do close grip bench presses during your triceps workout you may want to stop the weight a few inches before it touches your chest because lowering it all of the way could cause discomfort in the wrists. Reverse grip bench presses take some getting used to but are a great triceps exercise when you get the form down. You don't want to do too many sets of either close grip or reverse grip benches since they will hit your chest a bit as well and cause overtraining in it.
A great finsher to a triceps workout is to superset lying triceps extensions followed immediately by close grip benches with the same weight instead of doing a drop set.
It's very important to train the tricep muscles with a lot of intensity to help build bigger arms when you're following a weight training routine. Building triceps strength will also help
