The 5 Best Tricep Exercises

When it comes to muscles, there aren’t many that are as popular as your triceps. They make up the majority of your arms, and as a result, you need to give them the love and attention they deserve. They do a tonne of work after all, so when it comes to exercises, only the best for your triceps will do.

Whether you’re doing tricep extensions, push-ups, shoulder presses, even pull-ups, it doesn’t matter. Your triceps play a huge role in your upper body strength. To make sure you’re making the most of them, you need to be doing the right exercises. See where we’re going with this?

To keep you on the straight and narrow, we’ve put together 5 of the best tricep exercises you could ever do, all in one list. No matter if you use them all in your next arm workout, or add a couple to push day. It’s totally up to you, but they’ll all skyrocket your tris.

Let’s do it

Tricep Dips

Tricep dips are always a good place to start, due to their practicality, variability, and the lack of a need for equipment. They cater to any point in your fitness journey. If you’re starting out or don’t feel as strong as you could, then starting with your heels on the ground can be a good place to start. If not, however, using two benches or ideally, a dip tower can get you massive results. It’s up to you.

To do this bodyweight monster of a tricep exercise, all you need to do is lower your body slowly until your arms are at a right angle, and then extend your arms to lift your torso up until you are fully extended.

Be careful not to go too deep as you can do more damage than good, especially when looking at your rotator cuffs. It’s still an incredible exercise if you do it right, but do beware. You can even add weighted vests or hanging weights to up your game once you get to a point where that’s comfortable for you. It’s an exercise that grows as you do.

Overhead Rope Extensions

Once you start to incorporate other exercises into the mix, the overhead rope pull down is a great way to go. It’s one of very few exercises that actually hit all three heads of your triceps at once. That’s what makes them one of the best.

It gives you the optimum workout for real strength improvements and growth too if you use the right weights. Drop sets can often be the best way to do this for overload, but there are multiple routes you can take.

The idea is to use a weight tower with the rope extension attached, and pull the weight forward. Stand with a lean forward and initially with your strongest foot forward to balance yourself in a way you won’t be tempted to move to ensure isolation of the triceps, and extend your arms slowly for the best contraction.

Tricep Kick Backs

Kickbacks follow a similar motion to the extensions, but from a different angle. that alone opens up a whole new motion range and hitting different areas of the triceps harder.

They do allow you to use free weights however which is what we would always recommend, so that’s a good positive for stabilisation muscles too. It’s another reason they’re up there with the best tricep exercises you could ask for.

With your knee on a bench ideally, in a similar position to a dumbbell row, extend your arm backwards until fully contracted, and bring it slowly back again. This is one arm at a time too which is always useful in helping you get the best possible isolation without becoming fatigued as quickly. It’s good to have options.

TRX Extensions

This takes the overhead extensions to a completely different place which is always something we love and uses bodyweight too. What more could you possibly ask for from a healthy tricep exercise!

Using TRX ropes, lean forward with grabbing one rope in each hand, and lower yourself down by bending your arms as you relax your triceps. Then with a full, hard contraction, lift yourself back upwards until you are where you started, and slowly start again.

This angle may make it slightly difficult but you will be feeling the benefits of the exercise in no time at all! Try a few different heights and see what you’re made of.

Diamond Push Up

Finally, we’ll go with a tricep focussed exercise that is often forgotten about when thinking about the standard tricep workouts. Despite being a push-up, the arms take almost the entirety of the workload, and it’s, of course, safe because of the position you are in without added weight.

To do it, you need to be in a push-up position but with your hands together, forming a diamond type shape with your thumbs and fingers in front of you. You’re essentially in the closest possible position you can be instead of a standard or wide position.

Once you’re ready, lower and raise yourself as you would do with a standard push up, but make sure you’ go slowly and maintain your balance for a great tricep focused compound exercise.

Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, consult your physician, doctor or other professional. This is especially important for individuals over the age of 35 or persons with pre-existing health problems. Exercise.co.uk assumes no responsibility for personal injury or property damage sustained using our advice.

If you experience dizziness, nausea, chest pain, or any other abnormal symptoms, stop the workout at once and consult a physician or doctor immediately.