Jeremy Ethier breaks down triceps anatomy and uses EMG research to build a routine: start heavy with close-grip bench press or dips, add overhead extensions for the long head, cable pushdowns for the lateral head, then triangle push-ups to finish. Triceps are 67% type II fibers, so they respond to heavy loads.
Foreign this video is a continuation of my science based biceps video that was previously released. I highly suggest watching that video as well to give you a complete overview as to the best way to train your arms and I'll leave a link to it in the description box below. In this video, however, I'm going to discuss the best exercise routine for the triceps based on the analysis of several studies and our anatomical understanding of the arms. But in order to learn how to best train your triceps, it's vital that you first understand their anatomy. The triceps are composed of three heads, a lateral head, long head and medial head, and it's important to know that although all three heads will be activated in all tricep movements, you can maximize the activation and put more emphasis on specific heads by choosing the right exercises, as you'll see in this video from the outset. As shown in this study by Hughes et al. We can see that similar to the biceps, the triceps are composed of around 67% type 2 muscle fibers which are best stimulated by using heavy weight. And in fact this study by New Net al showed that each jump in relative load going from 30 to 100% of one rep max resulted in more triceps activation, which is very similar to what was found with the biceps. And since the close grip bench press enables us to easily overload it and lift very heavy weights, I suggest starting with this exercise and using heavy weight for fairly low reps but in a controlled manner in order to recruit all the motor units of your triceps. As for hand spacing, this study by Lehman et al. Examined triceps activation using three different grips, wide, shoulder width and narrow. The researchers found that the narrower the grip, the higher the triceps activation, particularly in the long head. But given that there tends to be a lot of wrist and shoulder discomfort when using the narrowest grip, I'd suggest sacrificing a little bit of triceps activation and sticking to a grip that's a little closer than shoulder width. Another option as your first exercise however is weighted dips which allow you to lift heavy to stimulate type 2 muscle fibers. And it's just an overall great triceps developer, so the preference is really yours. If your shoulders hurt when performing weighted dips, then do close grip bench press and if your wrists hurt when doing close grip bench press, then do weighted dips. This next exercise is something called overhead cable extensions or as Arnold likes to.
Call them, and then also tricep extension on the bar where you let the body the head go under the bar and press out in order to use your own body weight.
And this exercise is going to put more emphasis on the long head of your triceps. But keep in mind that all three heads will be activated to an extent during any triceps exercise. But the reason it emphasizes the long head of the triceps more is because it's the only head that crosses the shoulder joint. Therefore, since a muscle produces maximal force when placed in a position of slight stretch, the long head can be better isolated by performing exercises that involve shoulder flexion, such as this exercise where the arms are overhead. And when performing this exercise, you want to ensure that your forearms are moving and not your upper arm, as this will allow better isolation of the triceps perform. But keep in mind that this isn't the only overhead triceps exercise that will emphasize the long head. Other alternatives are exercises like lying dumbbell extensions, single arm standing dumbbell extensions, and so on. However, I find that these are a little too strenuous on the elbow, which is why I personally prefer the cable version. But I suggest that you try out these variations and pick one that minimizes stress on your joints, especially when you start using heavy weight. The reasoning for this next exercise is based on this study by Baron and Buskes, which compared EMG activation of the three different heads of the triceps with ten different tricep exercises. They found that for the lateral head, the cable pushdown with either a straight bar or a V bar elicited the highest activation, which is why I'm recommending this exercise to hit the lateral head of the triceps. And in terms of whether to use an underhand or overhand grip. Unlike the biceps, none of the tricep heads play any role in pronating or supinating the arm, which basically means that you're not going to boost tricep activation by using an underhand grip as opposed to an overhand one. And since an underhand grip compromises your wrist position and you will likely lift heavier weight with an overhand grip, I suggest just sticking to the traditional overhand grip. A quick glance at the enormous horseshoe triceps of gymnasts proves that you don't necessarily have to train with just weights in order to build impressive triceps, and utilizing bodyweight exercises can be effective as well. This is part of the reason why I'm suggesting performing either bench dips or triangle push ups as a finisher exercise for the triceps. In addition, the study I previously showed by Baron and Busky showed that the medial head was best activated with triangle push ups and bench dips. And since our previous exercises don't emphasize the medial head as much as these exercises do, you definitely want to pick one of them to do as your last exercise. I would personally choose the triangle push ups over the bench dips or however, as not only has it been shown to have superior overall triceps activation, but it also seems to be less stressful on the shoulder joint for most people. So again, try them both out and see which one you prefer. And for this exercise I recommend training to failure for all the sets you perform. That's it for the video guys. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I suggest that you perform three sets of each of the exercises that I showed and also perform them in the order that I present them in. And you want to train heavy for fairly Low reps, around 6 to 8 rep range in order to fully recruit all the motor units of your triceps. And if you enjoyed this video, please do me a big favor and support me by giving the video a like leaving a comment down below as to what you liked and what you found useful. And also don't forget to subscribe to my channel and turn notifications on for my channel as well as this will all really help me out. And if you want to see part one of this arms workout series where where I talk about biceps in the same fashion that I talked about triceps, then you can check that out right here and I'll also leave a link in the description box down below. Anyways, I'll see you guys next time.
