Best Triceps Exercise You're Not Doing

In this article, I’m going to take the same concept that I used in my ‘Best Chest Exercise You’re Not Doing’ article, and apply it to triceps.

In the chest article, I talked about how to utilize all three muscle building mechanisms, in order to maximize your muscle growth potential from week to week. Those three mechanisms are…

1.      Mechanical Tension

2.      Muscle Damage

3.      Metabolic Stress

As we’ve already talked about in the previous article, most people only take advantage of the first two, because you’re going to the gym and you’re lifting as heavy as you possibly can. And you are getting muscle damage, which is those micro tears in your muscle tissue from the heavy lifting. But in order to maximize your gains, you need to incorporate that third one as well. If you missed the chest workout article, you can read that HERE, and you can watch the video down below.

For this workout, you’re going to follow the same structure by taking advantage of mechanical tension and muscle damage with the first exercise. Then you’ll move on to the second exercise, where you’re going to focus on metabolic stress with a lot of repetitions.

Exercise #1: Power Bomb (6 – 8 Reps, 6 Sets)

When you do this exercise, you have got to make sure that you’re going all the way down at the bottom of the movement, to maximize the stretch, and take advantage of the entire eccentric portion. That is where you break down the most muscle tissue for re-growth, and if anyone is telling you to only do half repetitions, they don’t really know what they’re talking about. You get the most muscle damage in the negative, and especially in the stretch, so if you want to see growth, you HAVE to do full range of motion (ROM).

When you go to the top of the movement, lock out your elbows, and get a flex. Locking your elbows out on any exercise you do for triceps is NOT dangerous, because you are in control of the lockout. So make sure you go all the way down and all the way up on all of your repetitions, and only rest 90 seconds – 2 minutes in between every single set. You should be lifting as heavy as you possibly can.

If you have a hard time lifting heavy with this movement, because it hurts your elbows, there are a couple of things you can do. Number one, you can start taking care of your body, because if your elbows hurt, more than likely it’s tightness in your chest, shoulders or back (or all three) that’s causing that elbow pain. More often than not, it’s not actually tennis elbow like many people think. Start foam rolling, and maybe go and see a massage therapist to get those tight areas worked out.

Number two, if you simply don’t like going heavy on the power bombs and want to try something else, then you can take advantage of a close-grip bench press, or an incline skull crusher. Just make sure you still follow the same pattern of 6 sets of 6 – 8 reps, resting only 90 seconds – 2 minutes in between every single set.

Exercise #2: Power Bomb (200 Reps: 20 – 30 Reps At A Time)

As soon as you’ve done your first 6 sets, you’re either going to stay at the power bomb or transition over to them. The difference now is that you’re going to grab a much lighter weight, and you’re going to complete 200 repetitions as fast as you possibly can, getting at least 20 – 30 repetitions for every single set.

This is where you take advantage of that third muscle building mechanism, metabolic stress. You’re going to get such an insane pump from the pre-exhaustion of lifting heavy and then going into the 200 repetitions, that you’re going to be toast by the end of this workout. Your triceps are going to be ANIHILATED! Just to give you an example, I’ve been doing this now for a month, this is my third time doing it this week, and my triceps have been so sore for the last five days that I can’t even believe it.

It’s not like I’ve been taking any days off either. I’ve been training EXTREMELY hard for the last three months, and since I’ve applied this concept to my workouts, it’s just been a whole new world and I absolutely love it!

Why Your Triceps Might Not Be Growing

If you’re not seeing growth, you need to make sure that you’re hitting the lagging body part at least 2 – 3 times per week. We always talk about the anabolic window, and as a natural lifter, you can’t go six days without hitting the same muscle group, that’s why I’m coming out with my full body program. For those of you who are having a hard time building muscle mass, you need to be hitting the same body parts multiple times a week.

Conclusion

If you want to apply this to your current workout routine, definitely do it on your triceps training day, or your arms training day. But also find at least one other day during the week that you can do this workout or this exercise, so that you can maximize your growth from week to week.