what exercises to build bigger tri's

[BlahBlahYouToo]

i've isolated my inability to increase my bench due to my tri's giving out before my chest. my tri's are pretty cut, but not very large and they fatigue quickly.

i currently really only do compounds for chest, like bench (flat, incline, decline). i'll go on the cross over cables for flyes sometimes.

is tricep isolation the way to go to build them? if so, what's an effective workout for the tri's?
i've been doing dips and tricep pull down on the pulleys. i haven't found kickbacks to be very effective or time efficient since you really have to do them one side at a time.

 

[BlackTigers]

Maybe try to find something on here I just follow a set program, and haven't really researched what to do for isolation.

If that's no help, you can probably use it for form on what the more knowledgeable users will recommend for ya.

 

[jiggahertz]

Dips and pulldowns are good, don't bother with kickbacks. Skillcrushers and closed grip bench press are a couple other suggestions.

 

[KoolDrew]

Weighted dips, close-grip bench press, triceps extensions, JM presses, and board presses. Using bands while doing board presses will help a lot too by taking the chest and delts almost completely out of the movement, leaving the triceps to do all the work.

What does your whole routine currently look like? Also, how's your bench form?

 

[Pugnax]

Tri DB Extensions are good I didn't like skullcrushers.

 

[HN]

weighted dips. they're like the squats of the upper-body.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Weighted dips, close-grip bench press, triceps extensions, JM presses, and board presses. Using bands while doing board presses will help a lot too by taking the chest and delts almost completely out of the movement, leaving the triceps to do all the work.

What does your whole routine currently look like? Also, how's your bench form?

it's pretty sad actually, haha. i combine chest and tri's together and sometimes shoulders as well.

usually its flat bench, incline, decline, flyes on the x-over, dips, then tricep pull downs to burn out.
once in awhile, i'll throw in an overhead shoulder press since that works the tri's as well.

i tried skull crushers before and they hurt my elbows. too much weight mebbe?

 

[Pugnax]

Oh I also forgot one, called the Kaz Press http://youtube.com/watch?v=GJ39Me6MDTQ.

 

[jiggahertz]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Weighted dips, close-grip bench press, triceps extensions, JM presses, and board presses. Using bands while doing board presses will help a lot too by taking the chest and delts almost completely out of the movement, leaving the triceps to do all the work.

What does your whole routine currently look like? Also, how's your bench form?

it's pretty sad actually, haha. i combine chest and tri's together and sometimes shoulders as well.

usually its flat bench, incline, decline, flyes on the x-over, dips, then tricep pull downs to burn out.
once in awhile, i'll throw in an overhead shoulder press since that works the tri's as well.

i tried skull crushers before and they hurt my elbows. too much weight mebbe?

Had the same issue with skull crushers. Try limiting your ROM.

 

[purbeast0]

closed grip benching will bulk up your triceps. that is the exercise you will be able to put the most weight up with for triceps. i always do that my first tricep exercise, then switch to kick backs and then do some single hand pulldowns. i really try to steer clear from machines as much as possible.

i used to do skull crushers all the time but i plateued and switched to close grip bench and have seen good results.

EDIT:

and close grip doesn't mean hands right next to eachother. just make sure wherever your hands are that you have your elbows right at your side and not pointing out at all.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: jiggahertz

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Weighted dips, close-grip bench press, triceps extensions, JM presses, and board presses. Using bands while doing board presses will help a lot too by taking the chest and delts almost completely out of the movement, leaving the triceps to do all the work.

What does your whole routine currently look like? Also, how's your bench form?

it's pretty sad actually, haha. i combine chest and tri's together and sometimes shoulders as well.

usually its flat bench, incline, decline, flyes on the x-over, dips, then tricep pull downs to burn out.
once in awhile, i'll throw in an overhead shoulder press since that works the tri's as well.

i tried skull crushers before and they hurt my elbows. too much weight mebbe?

Had the same issue with skull crushers. Try limiting your ROM.

Read Only Memory?

 

[NGC_604]

Range of Motion. You can do girly-man skull crushers until you get strong enough to do the full range. However, I would just recommend doing less weight. I've always been a believer that full range of motion is more important and useful than doing partial range and higher resistance.

Kind of like the douchebags who do 300lb squats but only go down an inch. They'd be much better off doing the full range with much less weight.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
closed grip benching will bulk up your triceps. that is the exercise you will be able to put the most weight up with for triceps. i always do that my first tricep exercise, then switch to kick backs and then do some single hand pulldowns. i really try to steer clear from machines as much as possible.

i used to do skull crushers all the time but i plateued and switched to close grip bench and have seen good results.

EDIT:

and close grip doesn't mean hands right next to eachother. just make sure wherever your hands are that you have your elbows right at your side and not pointing out at all.

i like that, esp hearing you've had good results.
never tried it so i'll give it a shot.

 

[KoolDrew]

usually its flat bench, incline, decline, flyes on the x-over, dips, then tricep pull downs to burn out.
once in awhile, i'll throw in an overhead shoulder press since that works the tri's as well.

Rather than adding more exercises to target tri's, get on a better routine. Lose the decline bench, lose incline, and lose the flyes. The best way to get stronger at benching is giving your all on just that... flat bench, not adding more exercises. On a better routine, you'd see much nicer gains.

Could you outline your whole routine, like what you do throughout the whole week?

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

usually its flat bench, incline, decline, flyes on the x-over, dips, then tricep pull downs to burn out.
once in awhile, i'll throw in an overhead shoulder press since that works the tri's as well.

Rather than adding more exercises to target tri's, get on a better routine. Lose the decline bench, lose incline, and lose the flyes. The best way to get stronger at benching is giving your all on just that... flat bench, not adding more exercises. On a better routine, you'd see much nicer gains.

Could you outline your whole routine, like what you do throughout the whole week?

i thought part of my plateau was due to the fact that i never used to do incline or decline. someone told me adding those will increase my flat bench as well, which is my main goal - bigger chest / heavier bench press.

at work right now... will update the routine when i get home.

 

[jiggahertz]

Originally posted by: energydan
Range of Motion. You can do girly-man skull crushers until you get strong enough to do the full range. However, I would just recommend doing less weight. I've always been a believer that full range of motion is more important and useful than doing partial range and higher resistance.

Kind of like the douchebags who do 300lb squats but only go down an inch. They'd be much better off doing the full range with much less weight.

To clarify the ROM comment, I was experiencing pain in the elbow area on skullcrushers eventually even on warm-up sets. Started stopping about 10 degrees short of lockout on the upper portion of the movement. If anything you are keeping more consistent stress on the triceps during the movement. Not sure if the OP is experiencing the same issue or not, YMMV. Had similar pain at the bottom of the movement on preachers curls.

 

[NuclearNed]

skull crushers on the cable machine with a v-grip
dips / weighted dips

 

[rstrohkirch]

Originally posted by: energydan
Range of Motion. You can do girly-man skull crushers until you get strong enough to do the full range. However, I would just recommend doing less weight. I've always been a believer that full range of motion is more important and useful than doing partial range and higher resistance.

Kind of like the douchebags who do 300lb squats but only go down an inch. They'd be much better off doing the full range with much less weight.

You're welcome to your opinion on what has more benefits in your mind but to say that someone would generate better results from a different routine with absolute certainty is silly.

I could provide you with dozens upon dozens of links containing information from all sorts of respected individuals with topics from static training to limited ROM showing better and faster results than traditional FROM exercises.

Being serious in regards to this subject is always about trying different routines and exercises. Being closed minded only hurts you and the people you give advice to.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: rstrohkirch

Originally posted by: energydan
Range of Motion. You can do girly-man skull crushers until you get strong enough to do the full range. However, I would just recommend doing less weight. I've always been a believer that full range of motion is more important and useful than doing partial range and higher resistance.

Kind of like the douchebags who do 300lb squats but only go down an inch. They'd be much better off doing the full range with much less weight.

You're welcome to your opinion on what has more benefits in your mind but to say that someone would generate better results from a different routine with absolute certainty is silly.

I could provide you with dozens upon dozens of links containing information from all sorts of respected individuals with topics from static training to limited ROM showing better and faster results than traditional FROM exercises.

Being serious in regards to this subject is always about trying different routines and exercises. Being closed minded only hurts you and the people you give advice to.

i think what he's saying is that proper form is more important to developing muscles than how much weight you are putting up if you do it wrong.

like squatting 225lbs properly, going all the way down, is going to benefit you more than squatting 315lbs where you hardly even bend your knees on the way down. i think that's what he means.

and he's right.

 

[scootermaster]

More important than all of this...

Are we really sure it's your tris that are holding back your bench?

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: scootermaster
More important than all of this...

Are we really sure it's your tris that are holding back your bench?

yeah, my chest can keep going, as evidenced by my sets of flyes after benching.
i can feel the loss of strength midway into my last sets.

 

[KoolDrew]

Read this and see if you get anything out of it:
http://www.t-nation.com/findAr...o?article=body_115b600

There's really tons of different reasons for hitting a plateau. The usual culprit that I come across is just a poor routine though. You can't expect to get great results on a crappy routine just by adding more exercises.

 

[vi edit]

Rope pull downs are another. There's something about that last bit of seperation you get on the rope that just makes my tri's scream in agony.

 

[NGC_604]

Originally posted by: rstrohkirch

Originally posted by: energydan
Range of Motion. You can do girly-man skull crushers until you get strong enough to do the full range. However, I would just recommend doing less weight. I've always been a believer that full range of motion is more important and useful than doing partial range and higher resistance.

Kind of like the douchebags who do 300lb squats but only go down an inch. They'd be much better off doing the full range with much less weight.

You're welcome to your opinion on what has more benefits in your mind but to say that someone would generate better results from a different routine with absolute certainty is silly.

I could provide you with dozens upon dozens of links containing information from all sorts of respected individuals with topics from static training to limited ROM showing better and faster results than traditional FROM exercises.

Being serious in regards to this subject is always about trying different routines and exercises. Being closed minded only hurts you and the people you give advice to.

I don't think I phrased that correctly. I'm didn't mean to debate the range of motion in general. Rather I'm saying it sounds like he is experiencing pain because he's trying to do too much weight. Too many people try to show off and lift more than they can really handle, and because of that they don't get the full range of motion when it would probably be more beneficial to reduce the weight and do the full range.

That's assuming they're not doing a static training routine or something similar to that. If that is what a person is intending, then that's a whole different story. I'm not in any way trying to promote one method over another. Hell I do a mixture of several different routines. Lately I've been throwing in some Isometrics to complement my workouts and have experienced some good results.

 

[spamsk8r]

Originally posted by: energydan
Range of Motion. You can do girly-man skull crushers until you get strong enough to do the full range. However, I would just recommend doing less weight. I've always been a believer that full range of motion is more important and useful than doing partial range and higher resistance.

Kind of like the douchebags who do 300lb squats but only go down an inch. They'd be much better off doing the full range with much less weight.

I concur. Full range of motion and perfect form is to be desired over heavier weights. Period.

I noticed a dude at the gym the other day, he had 575 pounds on a bar for squats, but only went down a few inches... what's up with that?