Video explains why pressing movements (e.g., bench press) tend to grow the lateral and medial triceps heads but under-develop the long head. It cites a 2020 study showing bench-press-only programs increased lateral/medial head size but not the long head, while adding a lying overhead extension produced significant long-head growth over 10 weeks. The speaker explains the anatomical reason (long head crosses the shoulder and assists shoulder extension), recommends triceps exercises that emphasize the long head (overhead positions, modified pushdowns, lying overhead extensions, performing the combined shoulder+elbow extension), gives technical cues and progressions (control, light weight, neutral grip, finishing partial reps), and advises doing one or two long-head–focused exercises at least weekly to spark new triceps growth.
If you're struggling with your triceps growth or just want to get bigger triceps faster, then there's one exercise that you need to ensure that you're including in your weekly routine. Let me explain. Many of you watching have likely heard that by just doing enough of your compound movements like bench pressing that your arms will naturally grow and get bigger as a result. And that is true. In fact, multiple papers have shown that adding in additional triceps exercises to a program already consisting of various pressing movements to did not significantly increase triceps growth. One recent 2020 study revisited this and once again showed the same result. Adding in an additional triceps exercise to a bench press program did not significantly increase total triceps size after 10 weeks. However, what this study did differently is that the researchers then analyzed the growth of each of the three heads of the triceps, as opposed to just measuring whole muscle triceps growth, and here's what they found. Subjects that performed only the bench press experienced significant growth in the lateral and medial heads of their triceps, but not in the long head, whereas subjects that supplemented their bench pressing with the triceps exercise, the lying overhead extension, experienced significantly greater growth in the long head of their triceps, which indicates that pressing movements alone do seem to be enough to grow the lateral and medial heads to. But they do a poor job at developing the long head of the triceps, which is actually what makes up most of the mass of your triceps. And the reasoning for this is because while the other two heads of your triceps only cross the elbow joint and only function to extend the elbow, the long head also crosses the shoulder joint and therefore has an additional function to extend the shoulder. And research has shown that during your movements, like the bench press, your nervous system will actually preferentially recruit muscles that only cross one joint because those muscles tend to be more efficient. Meaning that if you aren't supplementing your pressing movements with additional triceps work, or you are, but you're not choosing the right triceps exercises specifically for the long head of your triceps, then you're leaving a ton of potential gains on the table. So what I'd recommend is to ensure that you're regularly performing a triceps exercise that specifically emphasizes the long head. Most triceps exercises where the arms are held overhead will effectively accomplish this. For example, in the study that I previously went through, the researchers used the lying overhead extension, which did prove to elicit significant growth in the longhead of the triceps and is a great potential option. But we can take this movement and we can make it even more effective. Since we know that the longhead of the triceps functions to both extent extend the shoulder and extend the elbow, we can combine these two functions into one movement. One option is to simply modify your traditional rope or bar pushdowns. Instead of keeping your elbows locked into your sides, allow them to raise up and initiate each rep by first extending the shoulder and then finish the rep with elbow extension with your elbows by your sides. This subtle tweak can help you prioritize the longhead more since since it now incorporates its two main movement functions. And to take it one step further, once your triceps fatigued to the point where you can no longer finish the reps, you can extend the set by just performing the first part of the exercise until you completely fatigue there. As a result, you're likely going to feel a burn in your triceps that you've never quite experienced before. Another option is to perform these modified pushdowns lying down instead. Like so, this orientation, it not only helps prevent any momentum or cheating during your reps, but the line of resistance from the cable forces the long head to constantly work against the resistance to not only bring the elbows down, but to then keep the elbows pinned in place as you fully extend at the end of each rep. And again, this same concept can be taken and applied to your traditional lion overhead extensions as well. For this movement, there's four parts to it, so first start with your hands held directly above you, then lower them to your sides. From here, straighten your arms back behind your body and lock your elbows in position. Lower the dumbbells to behind your head and then extend them back up again. From here, drive your elbows back to the starting position and then straighten your arms up overhead. That all counts as one rep. As you can imagine, you won't be able to get many reps, but each individual rep will place a ton of tension on your long head as you move through its various movement functions. Focus on control, use lightweight, and do experiment with different grips and ranges of motion with this movement just to find what feels most comfortable for you and your elbows. I found that using a neutral grip with dumbbells tends to be the best option for most people. But just try out these different exercises and find which one enables you to best feel that long head working. I'd highly recommend choosing one or two of these exercises to do at least once a week to supplement your current pressing movements or to even swap out some of your other triceps exercises with as this is the head that tends to get left behind, yet is largely responsible for the overall size of your triceps. By focusing on this, you'll very quickly be able to spark new growth in your triceps and for a step by step program that shows you exactly what to work out week after week to ensure that you're maximizing growth and not letting any muscles lie behind and simply head on over to buildwithscience.com and take the analysis quiz to discover which of our science based programs are best for you and where your body is currently at. Anyways, that's it for today guys. I hope you enjoyed this one. Do try out the exercises and do show your support in the video by giving the video a like leaving a comment down below as to what you'd like to see me cover next, subscribing to the channel and turning on notifications for the channel as well as this all really does help me out. Thank you so much everyone. I'll see you next time.
