Exercising your triceps is a key component of a comprehensive muscle-training program because the muscle serves as the primary elbow extensor. Improving the triceps' flexibility and strength enables you to flex and extend your elbow freely and powerfully and helps keep the muscle generally healthy, potentially preventing certain injuries. Stretch your triceps daily and perform resistance exercises several times per week to achieve noticeable results. Consult a personal trainer for guidance in developing an exercise program suited for you.
Stretching Exercises
Perform the overhead triceps stretch statically and dynamically to improve the muscle's flexibility. Reach over your shoulder and down your back with one arm at a time and pull down on your elbow with your opposite hand, holding the stretch for 10 to 30 seconds to perform the static variation. Start with your arm fully extended overhead for the dynamic version of the stretch, then repeatedly flex your elbow, reaching down your back, and return to the starting position. Try to increase the range of motion with each repetition for at least 10 seconds.
Isometric Exercises
Isometric exercises that target the triceps involve contracting the muscle without producing elbow extension and maintaining the contraction for five to 10 seconds. Set a pulldown weight machine to your desired weight and press the bar downward, just like the traditional triceps pulldown exercise, until your arms are fully extended. Allow your elbows to flex slightly, so the bar rises about 3 inches, then hold it in place for at least five seconds. Then, let the bar up 3 more inches and repeat. Continue this process until your elbows are almost fully flexed.
Body-weight Exercises
Examples of body-weight exercises for the triceps include dips, which involve lowering and lifting your body between two parallel bars or benches by repeatedly flexing and extending your elbows, and pushups. Move your hands closer together on the floor when performing pushups, either from your knees or toes, to emphasize the triceps. You can also perform pushups from a standing position with your hands against a wall, if the traditional variations are too challenging.
Resistance Exercises
Traditional resistance exercises that target the triceps include the close-grip bench press, dumbbell kickbacks, lying triceps extensions and triceps pulldowns. The last of these is just like the aforementioned isometric exercise, but you repeatedly extend and flex your arms to lower and lift the bar. The close-grip bench press is just like the traditional exercise, but with your hands close together to emphasize the triceps. Dumbbell kickbacks involve bending over with your elbows near your ribs and repeatedly extending and flexing your arms, and lying triceps extensions involve lying on a flat bench and repeatedly extending and flexing your elbows to lift a barbell from your forehead to above your chest and back down.
Plyometric Exercises
Performing plyometric exercises that target the triceps helps build muscular power, enabling the muscle to contract at a high velocity. These high-intensity exercises are appropriate for athletes who throw or strike a ball with an overhand motion, such as baseball, softball, tennis and volleyball players. The medicine ball chest pass and overhead-throw exercises are two examples. The first involves throwing a medicine ball forward from your chest as far as possible by extending your elbows, just like a basketball chest pass, and the second involves throwing a ball forward from over your head.
References
- "Basic Biomechanics"; Susan J. Hall; 2007
- "NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training"; Roger Earle and Thomas Baechle; 2004
- ExRx.net: Upper-Arm Exercise Menu
- "Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning"; Thomas R. Baechle and Roger W. Earle; 2000
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