Introduction
The triceps consists of a long, medial, and lateral head. The medial and lateral head originate from the humerus and the long head from the scapula. They all insert at the elbow joint.
The main function of the triceps is to extend the forearm at the elbow joint. In addition, its long head contributes to the extension and adduction of the arm at the shoulder joint (because it attaches on the scapula).
This is why when you do pull-ups with full range of motion you can feel your triceps getting activated.
The medial head is a very small part of the triceps, and the biggest parts of the triceps are by far the long and lateral heads. Your medial head will also get a lot of activation from any type of triceps movement that extends the elbow, so you don’t need to do specific “medial head” work. You should focus on the long and lateral heads.
How Much Triceps Volume Should you do
If you are Intermediate/Advanced in the gym, you should probably do between 6-20 sets of direct Triceps isolation exercises per week.
If you are a beginner, you should probably do between 0-6 sets per week.
One half of the volume should be focused on working the lateral head and the other half on working the long head.
How to Target the Lateral Head
You will be effectively targeting the lateral head by doing any type of forearm extension that does not involve extension and adduction of the arm at the shoulder joint. What does that mean?
It means that any type of pushdown variation that doesn’t involve you raising your arms over your head will effectively be working your lateral head of the triceps.
The best exercise to target the lateral head is the standard pushdown with a pulley. You can do it with any type of bar or with a rope, that’s up to you.
Example of a Pushdown variation
How to Target the Long Head
You will be effectively targeting the long head by doing any type of forearm extension that involves extension and adduction of the arm at the shoulder joint. What does that mean?
It means that any type of triceps extension variation that involves you raising your arms over your head will effectively be working your long head of the triceps.
My favorite movement is a variation of a cable overhead extension, skull crushers are also very effective, but they tend to put more stress on the elbow joint. When doing these exercises you want to stretch out the long head of the triceps as much as possible. You can do that by starting the movement from as far behind your head as you can.
Examples of Cable Overhead Variations
How not to Get Injured When Training Triceps
A lot of people either get injured while training triceps or they get persistent elbow pain or tendonitis. I used to get a fair amount of elbow pain myself, but I don’t anymore. Here is what you need to consider.
Find the Grip and Variation that Feels the Best
Everybody is made a bit different when it comes to joints. Everyone will have a slightly different elbow valgus and wrist structure and doing a variation that is the most optimal for someone else might not be the best for you.
To find out what works for you, you want to test out different variations with different grips and accessories.
You can find a lot of different triceps exercises variations here.
Do Slow Execution Tempos and Higher Reps
A mistake I used to do when training triceps is going too heavy for low reps. Doing this put an unnecessary amount of stress on my elbows and I used to get elbow pain because of that. After slowing down the tempo and going for higher reps I get similar (if not better) triceps stimulation with far less weight and far less stress on my elbows. My recommendation is to focus on doing slow quality reps with full range of motion. As for rep range I recommend doing between 10-20 reps.
