Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1132: How to Build Your Triceps

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin discuss how to build the triceps. How the triceps are the defining characteristic of the arm. (2:38) The anatomy of the triceps: The attachments, myths, function & MORE. (5:10) The 4 MOST important things to FOCUS on when training your triceps. (13:18) What rep ranges do the triceps respond to? (28:38) How to incorporate BFR (Blood Flow Restriction) into your triceps routine. (29:21) What is the ideal set count for the triceps for the week? Frequency of training? (31:23) The SPECIFIC exercises that MUST be in your routine to build/sculpt your triceps. (33:15) Mind Pump’s PHENOMENAL tricep building workouts: Exercises, rep ranges, sets & MORE.  Sal’s workout. (40:21) Adam’s workout. (42:21) Justin’s workout. (44:05) Related Links/Products Mentioned October Promotion: MAPS Anabolic ½ off!! **Code “RED50” at checkout** Mind Pump 1127: How to Grow Your Biceps 3 Best Secrets - How To Make Your Triceps Grow (AVOID THESE MISTAKES!!) How To Train Your Triceps The RIGHT Way (DO THIS!) Impact of range of motion during ecologically valid resistance training protocols on muscle size, subcutaneous fat, and strength. Pump your Triceps with this Tricep Tri-Set Mind Pump TV - YouTube How To Use BFR Training To GROW Your Arms (CRAZY PUMP!) How to Do SKULLCRUSHERS with Dumbbells for BIG Triceps (ADVANCED) Rubberbanditz Resistance Band Set Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Alright, in this episode of The Mind Pump, so we've been talking about training individual body parts. We've covered chest and shoulders and biceps, And today, we're talking about the triceps. That's the muscles on the back of your arms. The responsible for a lot of the aesthetics of your arms when you have nice, well-developed triceps.

It just makes your arms look sculpted and good when you're relaxed. Now in this episode, we talk about the function of the triceps. What the triceps are made up of. so we go over and add a little bit. We talk about why they're important to work on, what the function is in everyday life, when we talk about how they make up a majority of the mass of the upper arm. We also talk about the things you want to focus on when working them out. Is hand position important? Is it important to supinate or turn your hand up

or turn your hand down? What about grips on the press down bars? Does that make a big difference? Or is it elbow position? We cover all of these things and more. Oh, and finally, at the end of the episode, we give you a full tricep workout. Each one of us comes up with a workout

that we think is really awesome. You take these three workouts, you put them together, and you've got yourself a phenomenal tricep baby workout. Now before the episode gets started, the biggest sale of the year is here, Maps and Obolic 50% off. Now Maps and Obolic is by far our more most popular program. It's the first MAPS program. It's a phenomenal workout to work on. Building muscle, speeding up your metabolism. It's an excellent program to speed up your metabolism.

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that we have, that program, of course, 50% off this month only. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsred.com, that's MAPS, R-E-D.com and use the code red50, R-E-D50, no space for the discount. You know, a lot of people when they're talking about their arms and how they want to get their arms bigger or more impressive, they focus on the biceps.

We just did an episode on biceps. It's an important muscle, everybody likes to flex it. Yeah, I can't believe we spent an hour on that. That was impressive. Well, we're gonna spend an hour on its opposing friend. Oh my God, I can't wait! The tricep. Well, you know what? The tricep, a lot of people don't realize this.

It makes up close to two thirds of the arm mass of the upper arm. So when people are focusing, like getting, focusing on the muscular sure of their arms, and they do lots of curls, and mass of the upper arm. So when people are focusing, like getting, focusing on the musculature of their arms, and they do lots of curls, and they neglect the triceps, they're missing out. They're not looking at the big pictures. Yeah, do you remember when you first piece that together when you realize, oh triceps,

yeah, makes your arms look, yeah. Usually it was because like my arm looked bigger than my friends, but it was not my bicep. It was because the fat seps as you call themicep. Yeah, it was because of the fat steps as you call them so. Yeah, it was a triceps. I always had good triceps. Yeah, darn it. Yeah, no.

For me triceps developed easily, very quickly. In fact, that's one of the, if maybe not the only body part of my body. So for me, not so much. Really? Yeah, so I, but a lot of that, and I know we'll get into it in this episode, I neglected the movements that really made the biggest bang for my butt. Like, I did a lot of like cable push down stuff

because you could feel the burden that. And that was, you know, when I was a kid, I was in the camp of, you know, do the exercises that you feel it the most in, that must give you, that's what's going to grow the muscle more, right? If I feel it more, you know, do the exercises that you feel it the most in, that must give you that's what's going to grow the muscle more, right? If I feel it more, working more, it must be building more. And that wasn't true for me. I had it.

And I also have like a very high origin insertion. So I was always jealous of my workout partner when we were kids. He had this beefy tricep. In fact, when he used to do dumbbell curls, we'd be seated in his tricep would hang over his elbow. You're some guys They have like really long Origin insertion on the tricep and then they and the tricep when it's pumped up Well like hang over the elbow like and I you know as a kid you don't understand that like I don't I didn't understand Origin insertion and how that would make a difference

I was just like what is he doing that? I'm not we're working out together This doesn't fucking make sense. And then mine was all up high and tight and was small and didn't get real good definition and size to probably a good five, six years into my lifting. Yeah, no, for me, my triceps, I always had triceps, even when I was really, really skinny. And it was the outer head of the tricep that I,

and I have long muscle bellies when it comes to triceps in particular. Now triceps are called triceps because there's three heads to the tricep. There's a lateral head, which is on the outside, a long head, which is on the inside, an immediate head, which is also the lower outside part of the tricep. So there's three parts to it. Now, when we talked about biceps, we said, you know, you really can't work one head over the other,

the long head over the short head and the bicep. Now with the triceps, that's kind of true, but not as true, right? Because there's three heads, the attachments are actually quite different. In fact, the long head attaches at the scapula, and you'll find that when you put your elbow above your head and you feel that triceps stretch,

that's where you'll get the long head to engage the most, is in that overhead kind of position. So elbow positioning is extremely important when it comes to working out the triceps, but unlike the biceps, one thing is not important, necessarily, maybe indirectly, but not directly. Well, to that point too, it's one of the most common mistakes I see made.

I made also, you know, this go to where I like cable push downs, right? And cable push downs, I felt the triceps. So I would go in and, you know, the triangle, cable push downs, then the, you get a different grip than the rope push down there the rope push down and thumbs up and then like reverse grip You know and it's all elbows are positioned in the same exact spot and I'm doing it all in these cable And you wonder why my triceps were growing very much. No triceps have zero

involvement in the rotation of the hand so rotating your hand that's bicep And other muscles, but it's not the tricep. Now what will happen if you rotate your hands, and the reason why people feel it differently, is because when I rotate my hands, it tends to force my elbow into different positions. So my hands are face up, elbows tend to be forced at my sides, and when my hands are face up and I'm doing a press down, I'm not able to use as much weight, and so people naturally slow down and go lighter. But make no mistake, the hand positioning makes no real difference on the tricep in any direct way, aside from maybe helping you change the position of your elbow. And that's just a myth I like to get out of the way, because

you're right, like all the, when you look at the tricep, press down, cable or whatever, there's like four different or five different handles. Oh, it's just a ton. It's just a ton. As if it's five different exercises. I mean, for the most part, it's really not. It's all the same exercise, just different hand positioning. Yeah, it's funny.

I recognize right away, like triceps were definitely something that I enjoyed more. And I was better at right out of the shoots. And we did our bicep exercises hard for me to kind of conjure ideas around that. But I imagine that that's pretty common in terms of like your preference of pushing versus pulling. 100% you know, right out of the gates. That's why I experienced that.

I 100% that's why I love the bicep and the back stuff because I was just naturally a puller. And it makes sense that you're being a football player that you were probably way more heavily focused on chest and triceps and all your pushing. Especially if you're even with your squatting, you're more of a squatter driving pushing with your quads and you are a deadlift as a frequency in that direction. Yeah, triceps are involved in any pushing in front of you overhead, throwing, punching, it's the quadricep of the upper arm.

So if you think of your legs and the quads and how they extend the knee, the triceps do that for the upper arm. They extend the upper arm. They straighten it out, whether it's in front of you or by your side or behind you or above your head. And it's involved in any type of pushing movements. You should, regardless of what sport you're in, I think we've kind of destroyed the myth that some muscles you

don't need to train or some muscles you should work all your muscles. All your muscles are functional. But for some sports, triceps are extremely functional. Football is a great example. And football, there's a lot of pushing away, there's a lot of stiff-harming people, there's a lot of needing that elbow strength and stability to support the sport. Boxing would be another one with boxing the tricep adds that last bit of whip to the punch so boxing or striking martial arts it's also really important. Wrestling some people would say oh it's not that important you need more biceps for wrestling. Yes, biceps are very important,

the pulling muscles are very important, but with your triceps, if you need to post or push off your opponent and create some tension or leverage, the triceps are very important. So at the end of the day, it's a very, just like all the other muscles, it's a very important muscle. Well, and not just for sports,

I mean, we always talk sports. But also for aesthetic purposes, you know, one of the things that I think I've pieced together over years of training, and for sure, more so as I got into competing was, you know, as a young man when I'm lifting, we tend to gravitate towards certain beach muscles or muscles that we like and we train and overly develop them

and we neglect other ones where, I started to learn really quick that, I could have smaller biceps because I don't do them very much. But if I had in proportion to them, good triceps, my arms overall would look much more impressive. And so one of the things that I think when you're somebody who loves to do things like bicep curls and everything, because you like great arms, a lot of people are missing that, you know, you could probably back off some of the bicep work and do some more tricep work

to balance your arms out. And overall, the arms will look more aesthetically, please. Well, yeah, if you're standing relaxed, it's the tricep that makes your arm look sculpted, toned or muscular, more so than even the bicep. Without flexing, you're just staying there. For women, from an aesthetic standpoint, triceps are more important than biceps.

Now, I'm not saying they're more important, don't work at your biceps, but what I am saying is from an aesthetic standpoint, if you want your arms to look sculpted and shaped, it's all about, I mean, try, it's triceps and shoulders. That's really what shapes the arm, aesthetically speaking, in women. Well, and then you also see the, what do they call that, the turkey neck when the wave goodbye and it's a little bit of that, that flap that, that happens if you don't have

the muscle definition in tone. That's where your teacher, she's up there, you know, by kids, wiping off his chalkboard or your dry erase board. Please stop. It's flapping around. Now, the size of your tricep, besides how you train it, besides your genetic ability in terms of building muscle, a lot of it in the shape is dictated the the insertion and origin of the muscle and how

big or long I should say the muscle belly is. So you can't change that. I mean, you can make your muscles grow, but if you have, well, again, when you look at a muscle, you have the muscle belly, which is the muscle part, and then you have the tendons that are on the other end. Some people have smaller muscle bellies. The muscle belly is real short, but there's a lot of tendon. Other people have longer muscle bellies and shorter tendons. There really is no difference in terms of strength. Some people would argue that longer muscle bellies provide more absolute strength and stability

and shorter muscle bellies, provide more explosive power. But we're talking at the extremes. At the end of the day, it's all about, you know, how you look or whatever. If you have long muscle bellies, the potential for lots of muscle growth is there. Unfortunately, you can't change it with training. The insertions are where they are,

regardless of how you work them out. If you have short triceps or long triceps, they're just gonna look like that. Which is why it's a terrible idea to ever compare yourself because that was what I got into as a kid. Looking at my best friend who's working out with me and it's just, I was complex. I don't understand why this kid has different looking triceps

than me when we're doing all the same exercises. I was just, I thought he was sneaky in the gym on off days and training something and not telling me, but the reality is just, you know, we are anatomy, right? It's different. Like he was built, he was made up different than I was. So don't get hung up on looking at a girlfriend or a buddy of yours and saying, oh, well, he's, try said looks like this.

I need to do more of these exercises. Right. Right. Now, one of the most important things you can consider when training your triceps or programming out your workout is, because there's a lot of factors to consider, right? Raps and tempo and weight being used and what exercises to pick. But I wanna simplify this for people.

One of the most important things you should focus on is the position of your elbow. So different elbow positions means you're hitting the muscle in a different way. If your elbow position stays in the same position, but you change from free weights to machines or change your hand position, rotated one way or another,

it's not that big of a difference. For the triceps, it's mostly about elbow position. Elbows at your sides, you're gonna work more of the outer head of the tricep. This is according to studies. In fact, if you work out real hard, this is where you'll feel most of the soreness when you're doing these exercises, you will work more of the tricep. This is according to studies. In fact, if you work out real hard, this is where you'll feel most of the soreness when you're doing these exercises,

you will work more of the, now again, I'm splitting hairs here, okay? In terms of what part of the tricep you're working. You're not isolating. Right, you're not isolating one head over the other. But that being said, the reason why it's important to understand elbow position is because the way muscles adapt is they adapt in quite specific ways.

So if I get really, really strong in a tricep press down, I'll get some carryover with another tricep exercise, like an overhead tricep extension, but not fully, I'm not gonna get 100% of the carryover. So I've add 50 pounds to my press down, I'm not gonna add 50 pounds to my overhead tricep extension. Exactly.

So changing the elbow position gives my body more opportunities to adapt in different ways, which leads to better results, faster muscle growth or faster change in the way the tricep looks. So if you're somebody, so an easy recommendation, if you're somebody who splits up your workouts in full body routines and you hit the triceps three times in a week with only one one exercise. Then one day I'm focused on like elbow positioning overhead stuff. Another day

I'm elbows by my side and then another day my elbows are in front of me. If I'm somebody who does more of a split routine where I'm doing you know three different exercises for the triceps in the same workout. And that workout, I'm gonna do that. That workout, I'm gonna have an exercise that I do overhead and an exercise that I do with my elbows in front of me and then an exercise with my elbows down by my side. Right, and then the other thing you wanna consider to your points of tension and the muscle.

So if I, a lot of tricep exercises are done with cables, which is cool because when you do cables, you have kind of this constant tension throughout the whole movement, but don't throw out the free weights. Free weights still are king when it comes to tricep training, just like they are with most body parts or exercises. But the problem with free weights

is the resistance isn't consistent throughout the whole lift. So you want to consider that. For example, if I'm doing a skull crusher, a skull crusher is where I'm laying on the on the bench and my arms are extended fully out in front of my body and I bend my elbows as if I were to bring the barbell down towards my forehead or towards the the top of my head. From that bottom position as I'm moving up, I'm not lifting the full amount away until I aim directly opposing gravity. And then again, again, it gets easier as I push out in front of me.

There's not like a hard contraction at the top because the weight is relatively easy to support at the very top versus when it's kind of mid-range. And that's because, again, just like with curls, how we explained it last week, you know, as you're lifting the weight, you're not directly opposing gravity throughout the entire rep. So the hardest points of tension, you're not directly opposing gravity throughout the entire rep. So the hardest points of tension, you have to consider that. And with the skull crusher, it's mid-range, for example. The middle part is where, if you mean most difficult.

Now, speaking of gravity and intention, here's something that, you know, I think the number one tip ever given to somebody as far as that's trying to work on their triceps. I think the first tip I would always give is the elbow positioning that we touched on other. The other one and a thing that I see abuse the ton when working the triceps is the lack of emphasis on the eccentric portion of the exercise. What ends up happening a lot for, I guess it's just- That's the lowering of the weight.

Right, lowering or resisting the weight, right? So if you're doing a school crusher, you're resisting the weight down as it starts to lower down to your head. If you're doing a tricep push down, it's resisting the cable from coming back up. And I don't know if that's just, it's unnatural because there's not a lot of things in normal daily activities that you would do that. That it takes a lot of training and discipline for somebody to understand the end to know that the eccentric portion of the exercise is exercises as important if not more important in terms of building

muscle. So one of the greatest tips that I ever gave to clients when training triceps was to put a lot of emphasis on the resistance of the weight on the way down from the exercise or on the negative of the exercise. And this is where, you know, I see a lot of value in the four second count on the negative and really slowing down the tempo and resisting with the tricep. Because what ends up happening with a lot of people is they just let gravity take over. And then they're getting the good,

you know, that's, well, you school crushers example, you're laying down, you're doing school crushers with a bar or dumbbell doesn't matter. And I extend, oh yeah, good flex on my tricep, but then I like just gravity, let it drop down. And yeah, good flex to my tricep, but then I just gravity let it drop down. And then I catch it with the tricep and then extend out. And I'm missing out on that resistance on the way back.

And that was a big gain change or not only for myself, but for probably a majority of my clients when teaching the church. That's a great point. I think there's a lot of factors that go into that. In terms of like what we actually do, whether it's sports or just any activity in life where we're like pushing something off

or really the emphasis I'm throwing a ball, I'm getting rid of things. I'm not focused on the recoil aspect of that. And so that is totally not intuitive. So that is definitely something that you want to highlight as a coach or as a trainer, as you're going through tricep exercises. How many times have you guys stood next to a client that's doing like a tricep push down?

And they're, you know, elbows are locked by their side, shoulders are back, and they push it down really well, and then it's juke, and then the cable slips, flies it up. And, you know, well, another point I want to bring up to is, like, locking out all the way in, like, full-range emotion. And I don't know if it's, I don't know, I always highlights,

when I go back to a regular commercial gym, I start to see how average people are lifting and average people are doing exercise, using machines and things like that. And depending on whether or not they're trying to get a pump and just get that sort of burn into the tricep by just shortening the rep just a little bit so that it can get full lock out of the elbow.

We're creating a pattern here that potentially has problems down the road. Yeah, full range of motion in head to head competition, in head to head studies, full range of motion just builds more muscle, regardless of the muscle group that you're working now triceps tend to fall prey To short reps now when I first started training I learned through my certification, which was terrible That when you're doing a tricep exercise come up to bending about 90 degrees I'll go any further than that 90 degrees and then all the way down and they said it was because it helped protect the elbows Which I believed which is false.

Full range of motion done properly does not damage your joints. In fact, it'll probably promote healthier joints over time. And I remember when I first did this, I remember I was training clients and I did this 90 degree thing. And then I had a, there was another trainer that I worked with who had been doing,

you know, training for a long time and worked with who had been doing, you know, training for a long time and sat down and talked to me, and said, look, full range of motion is better. And I'm sitting there arguing what my certification said. He says, no, no, no, no. It has to be done properly, don't get me wrong. If you do full range of motion, make sure you have full control.

But try it out yourself, go lighter, and do a full range of motion, and watch what happens. And I remember I went and did an overhead tricep extension. And rather than stopping in eight degrees, I went all the way down, all the way up. So all these factors combined, yeah. Like focusing on the eccentric,

like maintaining muscular tension that's supportive for the joint, like incrementally going down to where, if you feel loss in muscle tension, that's where I'm gonna stop until I can build and develop strength, you know, in that position. So, like, you have to like work your way towards that

and not just jump into it, but it's definitely something to consider when you're trying to build and develop, you know, a full muscle. Well, I would agree that my third tip would be full range of motion and to your point, Justin my third tip would be full range of motion and to your point, Justin, maintaining tension through the full range of motion.

But we have to unpack that for the average listener, I feel like, because you brought up the national certification teaching the short and range of motion. I remember being taught the short and range of motion from the bodybuilding community, which was keeping time, time and attention was everything

that was term thrown around in the gym all the time. And you didn't wanna lock the joints out because then the muscle was no longer taking the load and tension and then it's at rest for that time that it's locked out completely. And there's some truth to that. It can be if somebody locks the joint out and you relax the muscle,

you lose tension in the muscle to what you're talking about, Justin. And now, if somebody locks the joint out and you relax the muscle, you lose tension in the muscle to what you're talking about, Justin. And now you're resting on the joint. And I think that's partly why the National Certifications taught this also because they're thinking, okay, if we teach them to shorten it up just a tiny bit, there's less risk of them locking out and then putting all the stress on the joints. But, you know, I think that we are smarter humans now, and we can understand that we can explain to somebody that, listen, you can fully extend the elbow all the way out,

but still keep the tricep flexed, intense, and carrying the load and not relax it. And so that's the key is taking the joint through its fullest range of motion, but then not relaxing it at the end range of motion, which is common to people rest at the end, and then now the joint takes over the load, you gotta make sure that you're keeping that focus mentally

on the triceps staying tensed, but then also taking it through four range. Yeah, no, I mean, here's an analogy. It's like all of us know how to stand without being active in our muscles, right? We all know how to stand with our knees kind of locked and just kind of stand there. And if somewhere were to come over and nudge us, we'd probably lose our balance because we're so relaxed.

Now imagine the standing, but you're flexing your leg muscles the whole time you're standing. It's exhausting. It would be tiring. Well, that's what you should do when you're doing these full range of motion exercises. If I'm doing a tricep press down and I go all the way and straighten my arm out, I'm not straightening it out, locking it, so I can take a break.

I'm straightening it out and I'm squeezing the triceps in that fully contracted position. That's where you're gonna gain the benefit. That's where I think the bodybuilders mess up is they don't think that, they think, oh, I'm just gonna move all the way up and then lock myself out and no, no, no. You wanna maintain tension. That's up to you to do in the way up and then lock myself out. No, no, no. You want to maintain tension.

That's up to you to do in a full range of motion just works best. So full range of motion, slow repetitions, emphasize on the negative and maintain tension throughout that entire full range of motion. And I will say this with triceps, the squeeze is extremely important. It's extremely important part of the repetition, is that fully extended squeeze portion of the repetition. Boy, does it make a big difference when you do that versus when you don't?

I mean, I could, I could do tricep press downs and not do that full squeeze, and I'll do a full five to 10 more reps. Add that squeeze at the very bottom where I'm crushing that full extension, and I cannot handle nearly as much weight or repetitions when I'm doing it. And this takes me to, I think, the fourth tip that I can think of that helped me and it has helped a ton of my clients, which was not neglecting the compound exercises for

the triceps. Now, those are more accepted, more accepted widely, right? Yeah. The compound ones for triceps. Yes. And that, to me, like, yeah, we talked about biceps the other day, and there really is, there's not a lot of compound exercises that you're, you, you would be training your biceps, and we argued that the chin-up would be a, a great way to do that, but there's not a lot

of other ones that you would probably do for the biceps. But for the triceps, I, I would say the two single best exercises that put mass, put size on my triceps was a close grip bench. Primarily for me, I prefer the incline close grip bench just because of the angle and the way gravity is on them. It just feels very nice. It feels very nice. And then dips, dips and close bit, uh, bench,

uh, been the two biggest things that put mass. Yeah, the gross movers. Oh, man, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, when you talk about the aha moments or, you know, I've talked about, you know, doing the dead lives and then going back to the seated row and it blew my mind, uh, focusing, putting a putting a program together where, you know, close grip bench and deads were in my routine every week for consistent six to eight weeks. Boy did that showed some of the greatest gains ever on my trial.

And for now, forever are they always a staple in my program? It's just, it's for me, it's the squat of the arm. You know, like if I'm going to build my arms, I'm going to do close grip bench and dips are always going to be frequently in my routine. I do dips pretty regularly. At one point, I really, really good at the close grip bench press. I was able to hit 270 for a couple reps with the, with the close grip. And my triceps responded, like crazy. It's just, and you know, what's great about those exercises, it's great for other parts of your body as well. You're gonna get some good shoulder and chest development,

even with the close grip bench press. Dips, that's a great exercise that I did as a youngster, stop doing them for a while, then Justin would talk about dips all the time and I started incorporating them into my routine and you just get great benefit from it. It's a great body weight, closed chain type of movement. So it does help you with your incredible mass builder.

And it's one of those ones that I remember being a kid, I couldn't even do a single dip. Then I remember like, you know, through years of training, I got to the point where I could do like 20 to 30 body weight dips. And then when I got to that point, at this point I still didn't see the value in, and doing that really heavy. I would just keep doing lots of reps with dips,

15, 20, and that was my buddies, and I always how many can do straight without rest. And I really missed out on what came later for me, which was, you know what, maybe I'll load this. I've never like really tried to load the dip, and maybe I'll do four or five dips, but then put you know 50 pounds uh between my legs and do these dips and was that a game changer doing doing heavy dips for

low reps in that three to five rep range and just going for like you know lower position each time and trying to like dip down even even like as far I could go down, but still maintain that strength and dig my way out, was a whole new strength that had access to then even going into doing a bench press or something where typically I'd have a sticking point, the lower the bar was, and then that really helped to enhance that strength from you when I needed it. Now dips isn't exercise,

that a lot of people don't like to go all the way up. When you watch people dip, they tend to go up and stop short of that full lockout. Yeah, same thing again. Make sure you go all the way to the very top with your dips, stop at the top, squeeze your triceps and then go back down and watch what happens. Now with rep ranges with triceps,

very similar to other body parts, the triceps do respond well to all rep ranges. We suggest that you play in each of them, but stay in one for a little while so you can get your triceps to kind of get used to a lower rep range or a moderate or higher rep range. Now it's much more acceptable for people to do lower reps of triceps than they do with biceps. You tell people low rep bicep training. And I can understand there's not a lot of exercise that work well. But with the triceps dips and close grip bench press, or weighted dips, I should say,

those are great low rep exercises. Oh, yeah, three five rep range for those. Yep, great. And then you have the advanced training technique known as blood flow restrictive training, BFR, BFR works phenomenal for muscles of the extremities, especially the muscles of the arms and the triceps. Now BFR will not replace your regular workouts, but if you're advanced and you're looking to add more volume

to your workout, throwing in a couple sets of BFR at the end of a workout is phenomenal. And the pump you'll get with BFR is, it's silly. There's no comparison to any other type of workout. And also for, you know, we talked, I think we had a question the other day on qual, regarding somebody who had, I think a rotator cuff tear

and AC joint issue. You know, if you have something injury wise or compromising, you'd from doing something like a close-group venture dips, obviously you would never tell somebody who's got a rotator cuff tear or something going on with the AC joint to go do heavy load of dips. So here's where BFR does have a ton of value. To me, that's where I see the most value is somebody who is- It just can't use that much weight anyway.

Yeah, they can't use that much weight anyways due to some sort of injury to a joint nearby potentially or even a muscle nearby. And so they still want to work their arms, but they also don't want to do it at risk of re-endering themselves somewhere else. So I think this is where we see BFR more widely used. You see it a lot in sports. That's why I think where it's got its popularity is it's for sure a any professional sport now football baseball hockey any of those a player goes down with a major injury

they utilize BFR. It's a staple in rehab. So that is where I see the most value, but it could complement a strength training for me. I mean, I didn't use it for rehab. I used it just to add more volume. And I definitely noticed some muscle growth that came from it. But you have to keep it up just like anything else, once you stop doing it, you can't lose the effects. It's extremely painful, it's one of the more painful ways of training. But it is interesting, but again, it will not replace the meat and potatoes of your routine,

which is just your traditional lifting. Now in terms of sets, triceps follow along kind of the same pattern as other body parts. Studies show that between something like nine to nine to 18 sets per week of resistance training is ideal. Now you could fall somewhere in that range of nine to 18 sets. Now I want to make this point right here. It's not more as better with this. If you find the right rep range for you and the right rep range for your body,

is gonna build the most muscle or give you the fastest results. If you pick a rep range that works phenomenal and you think by adding sets, you should get even better results, oftentimes you're wrong, oftentimes there's that sweet spot. And once you hit it, you're good. Don't judge it.

Most people listening right now will do best with about nine sets or 12 sets. Most people listening to his podcast are on the lower end of what I just said. But if you're really advanced, you've been working out for a while, then you're probably want more. As far as frequency of training is concerned,

two to three days a week is ideal to hit the triceps. Now, you can do all the sets in one workout, so you could do 15 sets in one workout for your triceps, but studies will show that that muscle building signal that the workout sends tends to fall very quickly after about 72 hours. And that's why you wanna hit it again shortly after. If you wait a week, then we'll end up happening,

you'll build a little bit of strength, the muscle, then that muscle building signal falls, but then you're not working it out again. And what ends up happening is it tends to fall below baseline and you start to lose. And this is why if you do one tricep workout a week, even if you're doing a lot of sets, you may be noticing that you're not progressing. You're trying to figure out why. Probably because you're not training your triceps frequently enough. In which case, I would say take those total sets and divide them up over three workouts. So you're doing the same amount of volume, you're just hitting the triceps, you know, three days a week like Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Now, do you guys have specific exercises that you always incorporate into your training? Like, yeah, for example, like, when I do legs, there's always some sort of a squat variation, whether that be a lunge, a bulgarian, it's put squat, a front squat, a backloaded squat. If I'm training legs, there's always some sort of a squat in my routine, just because I believe I'm getting the biggest bang

for my buck by doing movements like that. What do you guys feel about the tricep? Are there specific movements that every routine must have this exercise or like this exercise in there? Yeah, for me, skull crushers in the variations, I love skull crushers, I love them with a barbell, I love doing them with dumbbells, in fact, dumbbells are my favorite versions of the skull crusher.

I love doing skull crushers like Serge Nubray did in the 70s. He would take the barbell and rather than stopping at the forehead, he would bring the elbows back and bring the bar behind his head and then extend his arms up so that his arms were not directly in front of him, but rather slightly behind him. Maintain tension because now gravity's fighting your arms up, your arms a little bit. That's how I like to perform. If I'm gonna pick my favorite version of school crushers, it's that one right there.

I think definitely have to do dips. I mean, I've talked about this, but like multiple variations of dips, so different ways of doing that, whether or not it's the handles that are attached to the cage, and then I'm setting it high enough so I can go with my legs. I like to do it with my legs fully extended if at all possible.

So that way too, I'm also working on connecting my core to the process. So getting my legs involved and getting them tense and keeping control. So for me, it's a lot about control and controlling my body and space and dips tend to lend themselves well to that. I can incorporate more muscles and tense up and get that irradiation effect if I am in an extended position with my legs and also using the rings, the Olympic rings because of the instability that they provide for me to overcome and to be able to control. So 100% I've got always either dips or close grip bench.

And they're all never doing it. Yeah, I'll never do a tricep routine. And it's not like, and I say that and people are like, oh, you could do one without it. It'd be great. Yes, you can. But I find so much value in those two movements that they, one of them has to always be in a routine. Sometimes both, but many times at least one of those in that routine is enough for me to feel like I got a really good mass building type of exercise and then the rest things. And then probably a close second to those two, I would agree with you

south, Skullcrushers. I just think are just a great movement. And there's lots of ways to do variations. I'll play with Skullcrushers. I'll do them on a 30 degree bench, which is kind of similar speaking to what you're talking about with where your elbow is pushing, positioning and messing with where the strength curve is at with just messing with the angle of the bench. I'll do it. I love to do Skull school crushers with dumbbells.

In fact, I love dumbbells, school crushers even more than I actually like barbells for crushers. I like that having the dumbbells, they can contour to my shape. I have a really wide upper back and a narrow torso. And so, and then these little bars just feel weird. I feel like it's uncomfortable for me

and I feel like I can go much heavier and I feel like I hit my triceps better without other parts of my body kicking in. So I love dumbbell skull crushers and then like messing with the angle. So I would say that was probably a close second to those movements. If I if I those two that I'm talking about are definitely in my routine or one of them is, and then the second exercise would probably be a school. Now, no, if you're listening right now, and you hear us talking about like the best mass builder or muscle builder tricep exercise,

and you're like, hey, I just, I just want to sculpt my triceps. I'm not interested in having big triceps. Okay. You still should do the big bang exercises because if you do, first off, how fast do you wanna get your triceps to respond? If you're like, hey, I don't really care,

I want my triceps to respond and I don't care, I'll let it, I want it to take 15 years fine, don't do these exercises. But if you're like, I'd like it to happen sooner rather than later, I'd like to see some results happen fast. Do these exercises, I promise you, this won't happen, I promise like to see some results happen fast. Do these exercises. I promise you, this won't happen. I promise you won't do a skull crusher

because you heard us say it's a mass builder. You're not going to wake up tomorrow with these massive triceps, all of a sudden. It still takes time. But always pick the most effective exercises. And the reason why I'm saying that is, you know, women get marketed to with exercises. No, this your, and for triceps, especially.

The direction you're going is so spot on. You talked about triceps and shoulders being areas for women. Yes, it's for men too, but when I do think of clients that I made the greatest impact of changing the way their body, when I think of all the female competitors that I train, there was always a lot of emphasis on tricep and children. And it was because I saw that there was opportunity for me to show them change. As a coach, I could look at their physique and I go,

oh wow, I bet you, I bet you she's never done heavy, close grip bench. And just it's just not common. It's one of those exercises that, girls have been marketed to differently and like the squat for so many years, it's rare you walk through the gym and you see some girl doing three to five reps

of close grip bench or loading up the div- You never do. You never do. And those movements are incredible. They're not gonna give you bulky, round, fat looking tricep arms. They're gonna do- They're just gonna get you there faster.

Yes, they're gonna build muscle faster than doing cable push downs or tricep kickbacks, which I would say is probably one of the most worthless exercises that are out there, is instead of doing all these little kickbacks, you'd be far better off doing an exercise like a dip, and if you can, do it weighted, it'd be incredible, and in close grip bench press, man.

That's the movement. And remember, toned, sculpted, shaped, those are all words that just mean... Bill muscle. Yeah, you built muscle. That's all it means. So if you want your muscle, if you want your tricep to feel harder,

feel more toned, look more sculpted or shaped, that means you're building it. That's all it is. As you build the muscle, it's building to a smaller degree, but as you're building it, that's what it starts to feel like before it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

And building muscle is a tough process for anybody, including men who have, men have testosterone or much higher levels of testosterone than women. Building muscle is hard, so you want to use the exercises that are the most effective. And so the ones that we're talking about right now are those most effective exercises. Okay, so I think it's time that we give people a workout. Let's leave them with what would be a phenomenal workout for the week that would combine some of our favorite exercises with reps and sets and everything, kind of spell it out for people. So I'll go first.

If your workout, in my opinion, should start out with dips, start out with body weight dips, aim for 10 to 12 repetitions and do about three sets. Now if you can't do 10 to 12 reps with dips, if you're just like this is too hard for me, use a dip assisted machine or use a band. There is a way to use a band to help yourself. What you do is you take the band, you put around the dip bars, then you step on the band with your foot or if it's a short band,

you can use your knee, put it on the band, and then you do your dips and the band will help lift you or use the assisted machine in which it's much easier to use. The next exercise, skull crushers. I like to do these on a flat bench, and I like to do these with dumbbells. Have a couple dumbbells so that they're independently controlled by each arm, and bring the dumbbells to the side of the face or head. Actually, bring the dumbbells to the side of the top of your head.

You want to kind of reach back a little bit. It'll give you a little bit of stretch in the long head of the tricep. Then when you straighten your arms out, when you come up to the very top, keep your arms back a little bit so that there's still tension on that tricep. So that's 10 to 12 reps for three sets. The next exercise, overhead tricep extension, this is where you hold a dumbbell or a barbell

over your head and you bend your elbows and bring the dumbbell or barbell behind your head. Use a full range of motion with this. Get a stretch at the bottom. If you can get a stretch at the bottom, you'll really feel your triceps working really, really well. And with these three exercises, what you'll notice is dips, elbows on the sides of my body.

Skull crushers, elbows in front of my body, and overhead triceps extension, elbows point point over my or straight up above my head So now I have three different elbow positions. You're working the triceps in in pretty full way So that'd be my workout So I'd start off with I'd say my staple and favorite exercise for triceps that would be the incline Close grip bench press and the key to this is really keeping your elbows tucked by your side and in your hands really close together. You don't want to be out wider than your shoulders

and letting the elbows flare. The more you do that, the more the shoulders and the chest will kick into the exercise. We are trying to work your triceps. So find a weight that you can control your elbow staying tucked by your side. Now this is one of those weight that you can control your elbow staying tucked by your side. Now this is one of those ones that you can do low reps. So I have a mind, use three sets of four to six reps, but I see value in even three to five. So if you've never

done close grip bench press for on the incline for low reps, heavy three to five reps, this would be a great place to do that. Now I tend to like to warm it up with just a bar, just to kind of get my elbows warmed up, get the blood flowing a little bit, get my form and technique down, and then I'll load it since I'm doing really low reps and heavy, and then do three sets of that. The second one, a south storm,

my dumbbell, skull crushers. So I'll tell you that I would do regular skull crushers with like a camber bar or a straight bar is fine. But I do love the dumbbell skull crushers like you had in there. There I would do this 6 to 8 reps. So three sets. So we're going heavy, 6 to 8 reps. And then the final exercise would be a cable overhead extension. So like using like the rope is great for this and you latch it down low and then you grab the rope behind your head standing up

and then it's you bring it all the way down and fully extend three sets of that for 68 reps and then like Sal's routine, you notice we're playing with the position of the elbow and all three of those exercises. So I might take us a little bit more on the functional side, a little bit on the performance into the spectrum. And I'm going to start you right away with some plyo pushups. And this is to really stimulate that CNS response, that power output to really generate as much force as

possible in the shortest amount of time. This is going to carry over now into our next exercise, which would be the body weight school crusher. And this is where I was going for more of a strength exercise, but since we're going on the functional side, this is going to require you to be able to control your body a little bit more and really have access to your core strength to maintain a certain position like a plank position where we're grabbing a bar like say we're using the Smith machine probably one of the only reasons why I would use a Smith machine just FYI. But we'll take that or just like a cage and like take a barbell across and then put

your hands on the top and then I I'm gonna travel down towards my knuckles and then press my way out with keeping your body as rigid as possible. So I love that movement. Yeah, so that's one of my favorites for, I mean, obviously the school crushers with the barbells and dumbbells, that's another, I mean,

there's a great for building strength. So, you know, you can incorporate that as well. And then I've finished you off with what I suggested earlier, what I do all the time is ring dips, and really we're addressing instability. So now we've sort of changed our environment, our stimulus with a regular dip to where there's a lot more opposing forces

that are pulling you away. And to be able to maintain control and composure and fixed positions in the elbows and in the shoulders can be extremely challenging and it's very, very taxing on the core and it allows you to get even further range of motion that you then you probably would have if you're using just a dip bar on the cage. So one of those that I've found is like a total gem for me that has translated to strength in all categories. Now a regression of that Justin and K someone's like toast from the plywood and this cool crush. I mean, I looking at it, I think that, you know,

that might be tough, especially since I don't do a lot of rings. If I did like a close grip push up with the rings, that would be probably a lot easier than like full body weight dips on it. Oh, absolutely. Or even, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Actually, that's actually probably a good regression

because I was gonna say too, you could actually use it as sort of a standing overhead extension. If you lean into it like with your body weight. But then that's more like your skull crush your body. Then it's more like a very similar movement with the elbows. I would probably do a push up. So push ups probably.

Yeah, that's a good call. I would even say one thing you could do with ring dips is you could get yourself into position. So you could use a box or something, get up to the top of the ring dips, then hang and then hold yourself. Just squeeze the triceps and hold yourself up there. There's a lot of value in that and you're going to get a crazy tricep feeling from it. Well, that's the first challenge. I mean, if you can't do that, then that's pretty much like everything is to be able to stabilize in the lockout position

over the ring. So I highly suggest you do it. So I'll just say it first and see where you're at in terms of your capability with that and then progress by bending your elbows and going through an actual ramp. Yeah. What I noticed with ring dips is it really works the squeeze part more than traditional dips because because of the instability, you have to be rigid and really, it encourages that connection to the squeeze at the top of the wrap. And ring dips are gnarly for that reason. This is higher on the intermediate to advanced levels.

So I'm throwing it out there, have at it if you want, this is just a killer. Oh yeah, now those are what, three sets, 10 reps each, right? Three sets, 10 reps each. Now here's another thing too, trigger sessions. Let's talk about that for a killer. Oh yeah. Now those are what, three sets, 10 reps each, right? Three sets, 10 reps each. Now here's another thing too, trigger sessions. Let's talk about that for a second. Trigger sessions, you do on your off days. So we just gave you three workouts, right?

Let's say Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In between those days, if you want to get more out of your training, do some real light, banded work. So get yourself some resistance bands. You can use them at home and get a little bit of a pump. You do some tr light banded work. So get yourself some resistance bands you can use at home and get a little bit of a pump. You do some tricep press downs or some overhead tricep extensions with the bands. Nothing intense.

You want to keep the intensity low, get a little bit of a squeeze, a little bit of a burn, little bit of a pump, leave it alone. Now, though, trigger sessions help facilitate recovery, so your body will recover faster, but they also send a muscle building signal. Now, it's not as loud as the muscle building signal you sent with the workouts that we just went over,

but it is loud enough to keep the muscle building signal up in the air. So you want to think of, imagine a balloon filled with helium that now, two days later, and the balloons kind of, you're seeing those balloons after a party that kind of flow and they kind of slowly float down. That's that muscle building signal and you want to kind of pop it up with your hand.

Keep that muscle building signal high. And so the first workout, the workout that I gave you was a big hit that balloon up in the air. And then the next time you're going to hit it again real hard is on Wednesday. But in between that, you can pop it a little bit just to kind of keep it up. That's what trigger sessions do. So if you throw all that into the mix and you train appropriately, you've got good form, we've got videos on most of these exercises, you're going to get good results and you'll

see some good results in your triceps. No, we also created a free guide along the arms, too. That we did. It's how to get big arms, guys, but it's all about training the arms, wraps and sets and exercises and things you need to focus on. The guide is totally free, cost nothing. All you gotta do is go to mindpumpfree.com to download it and then we have other guides on there as well.

So you can download, actually there's no limit. You can download all the guides if you want to. Also, if you want to find all of us individually on Instagram, we all provide our own individual content. You can find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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