Don't be discouraged if you don't have the convenience of using weights or a cable machine to train your triceps. By focusing on the basics and getting creative with your workouts at home, you can still achieve the horseshoe shape you desire for tri ceps brachii .
You can perform challenging and fun workouts for the triceps at home without paying expensive gym memberships or buying expensive equipment. All you need are some basic tools and some time.
Exercises without weights are often classified as bodyweight training or calisthenics . But I'm not going to make any distinctions or comparisons here. These bodyweight triceps exercises are designed to be effective and practical. We always encourage a wide range of different muscle stimuli, whether in the gym, outdoors or at home. But you can use these effective triceps training exercises to complement your strength training in the gym.
Why should you train triceps
Regardless of your training level, developing your triceps is key to preventing injury and improving your performance in full-body exercises. The triceps muscles play an important role in stabilizing your arms and shoulders.
Your triceps muscles are responsible for extension of the arm at the elbow . The long head of the triceps in particular is also vital for the stable extension of your arm at the shoulder joint . The triceps take the pressure off your joints , especially your elbows and shoulders when performing exercises. We have to push things in different ways every day, so having strong triceps ensures that you are efficient and safe in your effort.
There's no shame in wanting bigger, prettier arms. There is a common misconception that to improve the condition of your arms, you need to focus on your biceps . The biceps muscles may be flashy, but they don't contribute much to your arm size. The triceps are a muscle group twice the size of the biceps and are 2/3 the length of your arm.
To improve the overall aesthetics of your arms, you need to train both your biceps and your triceps. Developing both muscles will create a more balanced and proportionate appearance, although you may find the biceps a more attractive muscle to train.
Exercises to Avoid
If you are looking for triceps exercises without weights or bodyweight triceps exercises, you will find a lot of bric-a-brac. Even with the best of intentions, many exercises recommended for bodyweight triceps are not effective because they do not stimulate the triceps muscles enough to cause gains (muscle growth response).
Some of the least effective exercises are plank variations - Plank Ups, Plank Rotations, etc. The problem with such exercises is that they require a lot of stability and involve many other large muscle groups. I'm not saying these bodyweight exercises are bad, but if you want to target arm muscles, it's better to spend your time focusing on more effective exercises.
With the bodyweight arm exercises mentioned above, your body will tire before your triceps are exhausted, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to target the triceps muscles as the movement involves many other large muscle groups that can take over.
Can You Get Results With Home Arm Workouts?
The short answer is yes, you can get great results at home with arm-focused workouts. You can train your triceps with body weight almost as effectively as with heavy weights or resistance bands. It is the amount of tension that drives muscle growth, not the equipment that makes training a muscle group more effective.
The amount of stress on the muscle is similar or even higher with certain movements, so your muscles will work just as hard whether you use weights or not. The body does not know the difference.
It's not enough to stress your muscles for them to grow, you have to do it consistently over time. Skipping a workout may seem unimportant, but it can actually stunt your progress over time.
Among the advantages of weight training of the body are their low friction and ability to be performed virtually anywhere, including at home. Since bodyweight workouts are convenient, it's easy to stay consistent with them.
The Only Two Exercises Your Triceps Need
push up
The push-up is not only the king of building an aesthetic upper body physique, but also the perfect exercise to achieve growth and definition in your triceps muscles. The push up is done as follows:
- Begin the movement in a plank position with a straight back and a tight core by tucking in your belly. Your arms should be shoulder width apart or slightly narrower in the starting position. Your elbows should be tucked in and not flare out too much.
- Lower your body to the ground. Avoid cheating by maintaining controlled form throughout the range of motion.
- As soon as your chest is near the top, push yourself up and focus on contracting your triceps.
The push-up itself is considered a full body exercise, but it primarily targets the chest, shoulders, and triceps. Depending on your level of training, the regular variation of push-ups may be enough to exhaust your triceps. If so, continue with this pushup build. If not, you're better off using one of the following two advanced push-up variants:
- Refuse push-ups - This is a slightly more advanced version of the standard push-ups. If you're looking to make your pushups harder, then the decline pushup is for you. The position is similar to a regular push-up, but instead of keeping your toes on the ground, you elevate your feet. You can use a chair, bench, box, step, or anything stable and comfortable. By changing the angle and applying pressure to your arm muscles, including your triceps, you'll work against gravity and get results faster.
- Diamond pump – the shape of diamond push-ups is the same as a regular floor push-up, except your hands are closer together. The movement is named for the diamond-like shapes you create when your thumbs and index fingers touch. Get into a push-up position (on your hands and toes) and place your hands close together so that your thumbs and index fingers touch to form a diamond shape. From head to heels, your body should be in a straight line. Lower yourself until the midsection of your chest is just above the floor, then explosively come back up, keeping those elbows close to the body throughout the movement and squeezing the top for a second before begin the next repetition.
Both are effective triceps builders in their own way, but you should keep in mind that increasing the height of the object during decline pushups can cause the shoulder muscles to take control of the movement. .
The dip
The dip is the second important exercise, often referred to as an "upper body squat." In the absence of any workout equipment, especially a dip bar, the following dip variation would be easier to perform.
- Find yourself a raised surface around the height of your knees. It could be your sofa, your armchair or other furniture in the house.
- Place your arms shoulder-width apart behind you. Your legs should be straight, with the back of your foot firmly pressed against the floor.
- Lower your body until your arms form a 90 degree angle.
- Squeeze your triceps and feel them contract as you extend your arms and return to your original position.
If you're comfortable performing dip exercises at home, you can try an even harder variation where your legs don't touch the floor at all, which puts even more tension on your muscles.
Classic dips are performed with the same form, except your hands are shoulder-width apart between two surfaces. This can be two chairs, a table, or something of equal height that won't shake while you perform the exercise.
How to Create a Tricep Workout Program
An effective triceps training program is one in which you perform high-quality sets of a few chosen exercises several times a week. Sets of exercises should be performed to failure, which means you have 1-2 reps left before hitting.
A bodyweight workout should consist of a maximum of three to four exercises performed multiple times, usually three to four sets. Dragging out the workout too much will cause more fatigue which hinders performance and more 3-4 sets of exercises lead to diminishing returns . The rest time between sets depends on how tired you are, but you can start with 90 seconds for dips and 2-3 minutes for push-ups.
Finally, an effective program will start with the most difficult exercises and variations of an exercise before moving on to the easier ones. This will allow you to use your energy on the exercises that will produce the highest level of muscle growth. The following program is based on variations of push-ups and dips for maximum triceps development:
- Exercise 1 – 4 sets of Diamond Push-ups for 12 to 15 reps.
- Exercise 2 - 3 sets of regular push-ups for 12-15 repetitions.
- Exercise 3 – 4 sets of dips for 15 to 20 repetitions.
Once you have worked out your workout based on these principles and your current training level, you should perform it 3-4 times a week with 1-2 days rest between workouts, depending on your degree. tired. 3-4 times a week is the ideal point to maximize the hypertrophy and avoid overtraining . Your muscles usually put between 24 and 72 hours to fully recover. A rest of 1 to 2 days is therefore the most effective way to plan your training.
To progress, increase your reps in a set, reduce the rest time between sets, or add a set or easier variation of an exercise after the main workout.
Fair to the questions
Which triceps exercise hits all three heads?
Diamond pushups effectively hit all three heads of the triceps, especially the lateral and medial heads.
Why aren't my triceps growing?
The triceps won't grow unless you isolate them from larger muscle groups and apply enough stress to them to create a growth response.
Can you work your triceps every day?
Yes, as long as you adjust the volume and don't let fatigue from one day's workout reduce the effectiveness of the next day's workout.