The Tricep Extension Exercise

The tricep extension exercise is a common exercise to perform in any arm workout because it really helps to target in on this muscle. While your triceps are definitely worked whenever you perform military press exercises, they will not have any additional help when you are performing these (whereas with the chest press you are using primarily the chest muscles).

Your tricep muscle is composed of three different heads, the medial, long and lateral and by adjusting the way your hand is positioned in this exercise you can easily focus on each individual head.

How To Perform It

To being the exercise, go somewhere where you can resume a half-kneeling position with one foot straight and planted on the floor and the other knee bent and kneeled on a bench, or alternatively do it kneeling on the floor. The hand that is opposite the leg that is kneeling should be placed on the bench while the other hand is grasping a dumbbell. Next, during a breath out, extent the elbow so that it moves in a line directly behind you. Note that to start the exercise, you want your palm to be facing inwards, thumb down. This will predominantly work the long head.

To change the focus to the medial head, you would turn the palm so it is now facing up towards the ceiling/sky. You may find that the elbow moves slightly outwards now and is no longer directly behind you and that is okay, although you may want to use a slightly lower weight to adjust for this (as the arm will likely not be as strong in this position). Lastly, if it is the lateral head you want to work, turn your palm so that it is facing downwards to the floor. When extending your arm in this position you should really feel it burning on the outside of the tricep muscle.

This is a great exercise to perform half extensions on to really 'feel the burn' at the very end of your arm workout. To do this, perform it as normal but at the very end, drop to a lighter weight and then crank out about 8-12 more half reps using this lighter weight (doing the half rep for the last half of the extension). This will really push these muscles and be a good way to finish up. Remember to stretch this muscle out afterwards as well to avoid experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness.