how to build tricep exercise

Many people do not realize the importance of their triceps, they think almost exclusively of their biceps. Triceps are used more than biceps, so weak triceps can be a real problem in your life. The tricep is the muscle opposite the bicep on your upper arm, and it's used for pulling your arm straight after bending. Gymnasts have to have strong triceps, due to the type of acrobatic maneuver they perform. For example during the back handspring you have to spring backwards and push up off the ground with your hands back onto your feet.

Seated Overhead Triceps Extension

Sitting in a shoulder press machine type seat, grab a dumbbell and grip it with both hands directly overhead. In the same manner as the Skull Crushers, keep your elbows inward and slowly lower the weight from the overhead position down to a 90 degree angle where the bottom of the dumbbell touches approximately to the back of the neck. This is a great alternative to Skull Crushers if your shoulders can handle a little stress and you want to put mass on all heads of the triceps.

Triceps Kickbacks

Kneel down on one leg, rest the hand not holding the dumbbell on a stool or some such. Let the hand with the dumbbell hang free so it is relaxed. Now, bend at the elbow so the upper arm is parallel with the ground. Straighten that arm all the way, if the strain peaks when you fully straighten your arm you are doing it right. If not find a heavier dumbbell or check your stance. Start with 5 and build up from there in fives as you build more muscle.

Tricep Dips

This is an exercise that you can do in the beginning to warm up the triceps or at the end if you have the muscle endurance and strength to finish off your triceps routine. To ensure that you do not involve too much chest in this exercise, do not go down past parallel on the dips bar...stop at or slightly above a position where you elbows are at a 90 degree angle. Also, keep the elbows in close to your body throughout the movement.

Triceps Extension (palms up or down)

This is another movement to use as a warm up or finisher to an intense workout. Using a triceps cable machine that can be found in any gym, grab a rope, straight bar or V-bar and extend it until your elbows are in the locked position at the bottom, hold it for a second to get the squeeze in the triceps, and bring the bar up almost to the top, keeping your elbows in a fixed position against your body. Keep your body in a standing position...trying not to lean over to much to use extra leverage...let the triceps do the work! The rope will focus on the long head and brachialis if done correctly, while palms up will hit the medial head, palms down the lateral head.