The Best Triceps Exercise
December 29 2009
There are plenty of triceps exercises, but which is the very best triceps exercise?
What are the different Triceps muscle heads?
As shown in the pic, the triceps Brachii (cep=head) have three heads (medial head lies beneath other heads) :
- Long head
- Medial Head
- Lateral head
What is the function of triceps muscle?
The major function of triceps or all the triceps head is the extension of your elbow (push your elbows away from you)
On the other hand, triceps long head is a bi-articulate muscle or crosses the elbow and the shoulder joint and hence has the function of shoulder extension (bring the arm to the rear of the body) too.
So which is the best triceps exercise?
- The best tricep exercise will be the one which maximally activates all three heads, especially the triceps long head
- Triceps long head has the greatest volume and length compared to other heads. So you will get the greatest gains if you build your long head than any other triceps heads.
- You can only maximally activate your tricep long head if you keep your arms over head as in overhead extensions & dumbell french press. Triceps exercises which have your arms down like cable pressdowns do not maximally activate the triceps long head muscle.
All the other heads will be activated with just elbow extension; It doesn’t matter whether your arms are over head or not.
Practical Applications
If you had to pick one triceps exercise, the best triceps exercise would be one which bring your arm overhead, like overhead extensions or dumbell french press.
