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How To Build Huge Arms By Growing Your Triceps

Updated on December 29, 2017
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A fellow human who loves his planet and beyond, with interests that match and never end. One life. One love. Appreciate everything.

The Location of Your Triceps Muscles

If You Want to Build Big Thick Arm Muscles Then Focus on Your Triceps.

Your triceps if you don’t know already take up two thirds of your upper arm so it makes sense to work on these muscles if you want to increase the size of your arms.

  • Biceps are what I call vanity muscles and are great to work too but if you are looking for mass then build your triceps.
  • Biceps are actually a pretty small muscle and even though they are the first muscle you see or look at when someone is walking towards you or you ask them to make a muscle, nothing will make your arms more massive than hitting your triceps with some great mass building exercises.
  • The triceps are made up of 3 different heads, a smaller outer head (lateral), a smaller thick inner head (medial) and a longer thick head (long head) that runs from the top of your upper arm to your elbow.

Increasing Muscle Mass

To increase muscle mass in your arms you should be exercising the inner heads of your triceps more than the outer head of the triceps muscles.

  • The outer head will help to give your arm that horseshoe look when flexed but the inner triceps heads will increase the size of your arms much quicker.
  • The exercises that will help you build size the quickest in this area of your arm are close grip bench press and skull crushers which are sometimes called the French press.
  • Most bodybuilders prefer to perform skull crushers because if you are doing bench press for chest already then your triceps are already getting worked very hard similar to the close grip bench press.
  • Skull crushers (french press) really isolate and pump a lot of blood into the triceps area. To perform skull crushers I prefer to use an EZ curl or sometimes called a cambered curling bar which is shorter than a barbell.
  • You can use a barbell for this exercise but you might find the straight bar harder on your wrists and that is why I recommend using the EZ curl bar or cambered curling bar.

Tricep Exercise the Skull Crusher

To perform a skull crusher you will need a flat bench and your loaded EZ curl weight bar. Position the bar with weights on it on the floor at the end of the bench where your head will rest.

  • Laying back on the bench on your back and reaching back and down onto the floor picking the barbell up and bringing it up over your head and shoulders until your arms are pointing up towards the ceiling holding the bar so the back of your hands are facing towards your head, palms towards your legs.
  • Bending at the elbow lower the weights towards your skull. This would be why this exercise is called a skull crusher. be very careful to never let go of the weight. Concentrate always on what you are executing.
  • Make sure your upper arms stay stationary and your elbows keep pointing toward the ceiling. When the bar is just about hitting your skull raise the bar back to the starting position.
  • That was one repetition. An excellent muscle building tweak for this exercise is to position your upper arms so that they are angled (or leaning) slightly pointing towards your head from vertical. This position will place more tension on your triceps at all points of the exercise when performing the movement.

Scheduling Your Triceps Workout

If you perform chest exercises on a regular basis make sure to work your triceps on the same day so you don’t over train them and give your triceps plenty of time to recover and rebuild.

  • Since you are working the triceps muscles on the same day as your chest workout you won’t have to perform as many sets on your triceps and you will be able to jump right into some heavier weights as your triceps will be warmed up from the chest exercises you just performed.
  • Do 3 heavy sets of triceps after your chest and that should be plenty of exercise for that muscle group.
  • Work your chest and triceps twice a week and you should see some growth.
  • It might not seem like much but if you take into consideration all the other muscle group you still need to work out then twice a week is most likely enough.
  • Building massive triceps and massive arms have never been easier if you follow these recommendations.

© 2011 Grant Handford

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