What I've learned about triceps: the bite-the-bullet triceps ultimate mass builder - Hardgainer's Ultimate Growth Enhancement System

Flex, Oct, 2002 by Kevin Levrone

Learning, I've found, is more a matter of discarding useless information than it is of accumulating so much knowledge that the truth becomes obscured. In today's world of bodybuilding, especially, it's easy to hack one's way so deep into the jungle of twisted theories and technologies that you might never again see daylight.

Fortunately, I was an innocent coming into this pro world 11 years ago, and an innocent I remain. Building gigantic triceps was a quick and simple task then, and the longer I'm at it, the simpler it gets. Time and again, I'm able to verify this when I discard some pop-muscle maxim and liberate another new growth spurt. Those maxims are now down to barely more than a handful, and they're so simple that I can easily share them with you. Trust me -- they work.

#1 HEAVY BENCHES

These are a great triceps start on chest day. Everyone knows that bench presses are the best exercise of all time for building a massive chest, but they're also absolutely necessary for building massive triceps. No matter how much of a mind-muscle connection you focus into your pecs when benching, your triceps have more than their share of work cut out for them in pushing a heavy barbell up to arms' length. Brainwashed by the current fad that dictates isolating all muscles, most people assume that a compound exercise is a compromise exercise that reduces its benefit to the least common denominator for all muscles involved. The truth, however, is precisely the opposite: The heavier the movement, the more thoroughly all of those muscle groups are stressed. Had I not done heavy benches all my bodybuilding life, the individual heads of my triceps might have been more distinctly separated, but my entire triceps complex would have been half its current size and not nearly as thick. Bottom line: The more work you de mand of a muscle group, the bigger it will grow, and benches demand the most work of your total triceps complex.

#2 TRAIN CHEST, SHOULDERS AND TRICEPS TOGETHER

I've always trained triceps in the same workout following chest and shoulders so that, by the time I get to them, they're already pumped and pre-exhausted from all of those bench, incline and military presses. My triceps are therefore more responsive to their own mass-building movements. There's no energy wasted trying to squirt blood into them with what I call "ultralights," or useless warm-up sets. Instead, I can jump right into my heaviest sets. All it takes is four or five moderately heavy repetitions to acquaint my body with the movement, then I stack on the plates and max out a bunch of six-rep sets. Right off, I'm forcing muscle fatigue to penetrate all the way to the core of my triceps.

#3 USE LYING, SEATED AND STANDING EXTENSIONS

By lying extensions, I mean lying triceps extensions with a barbell. By seated extensions, I mean two-arm behind-the-neck extensions, with either a barbell or a dumbbell; and one-arm dumbbell extensions. By standing extensions, I mean cable pressdowns of any type.

Many bodybuilders perform lying triceps extensions (often called skull crushers) as presses, letting their elbows drop and their triceps relax, so they can leverage the weight upward using their forearms and lats, with minimum triceps effort. I avoid that at all costs. For lying extensions, my elbows point straight at the ceiling. That actually gives me more triceps strength. My triceps stay tighter, and I get a more intense contraction in the horseshoe and belly-head muscles. That means more mass and separation for my upper and middle triceps.

That's also my rationale for emphasizing the term "extensions" in seated barbell extensions, two-arm behind-the-neck dumbbell extensions, two-arm behind-the-neck cable extensions, one-arm behind-the-neck extensions and other overhead behind-the-neck exercises. When doing seated extensions, keep your elbows pointed above your head at all times so that, as you lower the weight to the scruff of your neck, you feel an extreme stretch in the lower part of your triceps, near your elbows. That's what will lengthen your horseshoes.

For standing cable pressdowns, the same thinking holds. Keep your elbows against your sides, so that all of your power comes from your upper triceps.

#4 USE DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES FOR FREE WEIGHTS AND CABLES

My rule of thumb is to use explosive movements with free weights, and continuous tension and peak contraction with cables. Compound mass-building movements with free weights are more likely to be driven deeper into the muscle group by explosive shock waves of stress. Cable movements cannot generate compound power; they are better at isolating power in individual heads and singeing the tissues with a burn, so they benefit more from consistent resistance, such as with continuous tension and peak contraction. Examples: explosion for two-arm behind-the-neck dumbbell extensions; continuous tension and peak contraction for behind-the-neck cable extensions.

#5 PUSH THE TWO Ps: POUNDAGE AND PROTEIN

All of the state-of-the-art techniques and exercises in the world are worthless unless you are constantly trying to increase the weights you lift and the protein you need to build more lean muscle tissue. You need both; if one is absent, your triceps cannot grow. If you do not attempt to increase the poundage of your lifts the next time, your muscles will not be forced beyond where you left them the last time; and if you do not eat enough protein (at least one gram per pound of bodyweight on a daily basis) for your muscles to grow beyond where you left them the last time, that's where they will stay.