Triceps Workout For Bodybuilding

Triceps workouts for bodybuilding emphasize muscular development that improves the aesthetic appearance of your triceps. A triceps workout for bodybuilding supports equal development throughout the muscle and helps build or maintain symmetrical form. Bodybuilders can adjust a triceps workout to improve weaknesses or imbalances on individual portions of the triceps. Let your triceps rest at least one day between each workout, because they need time to build new muscle tissue and recover from training. Discuss your weightlifting regimen with your doctor before making any drastic changes.

Muscle Mass

Muscle mass --- the size of your muscles --- is a primary judging criterion for bodybuilding competitions. Heavy weightlifting workouts emphasize increasing the size of your triceps for bodybuilding. The National Federation of Personal Trainers recommends maximizing muscle growth with triceps exercises that exhaust your muscles within four to six repetitions. Resistance that exhausts your triceps within this repetition range maximizes damage to the contractile fibers in the muscles. The triceps adapt by increasing the size and strength of individual muscle fibers.

Exercises

The triceps muscle has three individual heads. Divide four to six sets among two or three exercises that work each head of the triceps. Keep in mind exercises that can improve lagging development in any individual head. Parallel triceps dips are ideal for recruiting all three heads. Cable and rope extensions target the long head of the triceps, which runs down the back of your arm along the side of your body. The seated half-press hits the lateral head of the triceps, which runs along the outside of your upper arm. The medial head of the triceps is at the center of the back of your upper arm, and responds well to the close-grip bench press, fitness expert Clay Hyght writes for the T Nation website.

Frequency

Your body's initial responses to weightlifting workouts, which include muscle building, begin subsiding 48 hours after a workout. You must perform triceps workouts with enough frequency to stimulate noticeable muscle growth and progress with your training. The National Federation of Personal Trainers recommends that you perform triceps workouts within the four-to-six-repetition range once or twice per week. The Hypertrophy-Specific Training method, developed by Bryan Haycock, recommends working your triceps three times each week for bodybuilding. Sufficient frequency helps sustain an anabolic biological environment, which supports muscle growth, in your body.

Progression

Start with an amount of weight with which you can complete only four repetitions. Continue using the same amount of weight until you can perform six repetitions for every set without any forced reps, then increase the weight and start again with four repetitions. Your triceps adapt to exercises within three to four weeks, and this adaptation prevents further growth and progress. Keep your triceps in an adaptive state by varying the exercises in your workout. You can introduce exercise variation by performing more sets, changing the angle of movement or alternating between free-weight and machine versions of individual exercises. You can also change the speed that you perform exercises. Slower contractions stimulate more muscle growth than faster contractions.