Shawn LeBrun’s Muscle Building Blog

Build muscle with the best tricep exercises

March 14th, 2008

The most effective tricep exercises to build muscle

Much like there was for biceps, there are two tricep exercises that are above the rest in terms of effective muscle building stimulation.

If you want bigger, fuller looking arms, work more to build muscle on your triceps. Triceps (3-headed) make up more of your arm than do biceps (2-headed). Most people are so preoccupied with biceps training that they forget about triceps.

Building more muscle on your triceps mean bigger arms.Lying tricep extensions

Place a curl bar at the head of a bench. Sit down, grab the bar with an overhand, narrow grip, and lie down on your back, pushing the weight up and straight over your chest. Bend at the elbows lowering the weight behind your head.

With an explosive motion, push the weight back over your head until your arms are fully extended with the weight above your chest. When you complete your reps, use your momentum to rock your body up and stand up to put the bar back on the edge of the bench.

This is probably the most effective tricep exercise you can do. You can use very heavy weight with these, increasing the overload factor to the triceps. Use a curved curl bar for these. There are a couple of points to keep in mind.

When you lower the weight, bring it past your forehead and down towards the middle of your head.

Bringing the bar to your forehead will create unwanted pressure and stress on your elbows. After you slowly lower the weight towards the back of your head, power the weight back up forcefully, extending and locking your arms, contracting your triceps.

Also, once you have completed these for your set of 4-6 reps, do not bother doing close-grip bench presses immediately after, using the same bar and weight.

Once you have fatigued the triceps on your set, it is pointless to try and do a few reps of close-grips at a lighter weight than you can handle when doing regular close-grips. Save your energy.

Close-grip bench presses This is the second of two extremely effective tricep exercises.

This is a definite muscle builder for the triceps. It is performed just like a regular bench press except your hands are 6-8 inches apart from one another.

You lower the weight to your chest like a regular bench press, and then forcefully push the weight up, locking your arms and contracting your triceps. Do not grip with a too-narrow grip of this will definitely cause some pain to your wrists.

Regular grip bench press also works the triceps, but when you bring your hands closer together, more overload is directed to the triceps.Cable tricep pushdowns

Reach up, grab the bar, and push the bar down towards your thighs.

Stand with a sturdy foundation that will allow you to lean into the movement. Now bend at the elbows and control the weight up until the bar is by your chin. With an explosive motion, push the weight back down until your elbows lock, fully contracting the triceps. Repeat thisuntil you complete your reps.

These are a great tricep exercise, designed to hit the triceps with serious overload. Most people can do these with more weight than they think they can. When doing these, lean forward a bit, lean into the weight. This will keep you more balanced and will also allow you to handle more weight than standing straight up.

Also, when bringing the weight up, allow the bar and your arms to come up a bit more than parallel to the floor. Allow the bar to come up to about shoulder level. The reason behind this is to increase the range of motion and to also decrease the stress on the elbows.

Really exaggerate locking the arms and squeezing the triceps when you bring the weight down.

These are 3 of the best muscle building tricep exercises you can use if you want to build muscle in your arms.

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Best Bicep Exercises To Build Muscle

March 14th, 2008

The most effective bicep exercises to build muscle

If you want to build muscle in your biceps, here are the best bicep exercises for building muscle.

Standing straight-bar curls

This is, without a doubt, the best overall bicep exercise you can do to build muscle.

It is the epitome of this muscle building program we are doing, which are low reps of heavy, intense, basic compound movements. Standing straight-bar curls allow you to directly hit the biceps with a great degree of overload.

Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart. Space your hands shoulder width and grip the bar with an underhand grip.

Begin with your arms straight, biceps fully extended, and your upper body leaning slightly forward. With an explosive motion, curl the weight towards you contracting the biceps.

During the curling motion, move your upper body back to an upright position. With control, lower the weight back to its original position getting a good stretch and lean slightly forward.

To make these the most effective at muscle building they can be, you need to lower the weight twice as slowly as you raise it. Most of the muscle fiber stimulation actually occurs on the negative, or lowering, portion of the exercise.

So don’t just let the weight drop. This will not allow you to build muscle in the biceps as well.Control it all the way down.

Also, make sure you lower the weight all the way down so that the bar is touching your legs.

Do not get into the habit of doing partial reps on curls. You need a full range of motion in order to work the bicep.

Remember, the lowering portion actually works the biceps more than the lifting, so why wouldn’t you want to increase the range of motion and go all the way down with the bar?

If for whatever reason these straight-bar curls create a lot of stress to your wrists, try using the curved curl bar. The positioning of the wrists will reduce much of the tension.

Standing alternating dumbbell curls

These will also help you build muscle in the biceps.Hold the dumbbells at your side with your palms facing each other. Curl one dumbbell at a time rotating your palm forward as you lift the weight.

After fully contracting the bicep, lower the dumbbell under control rotating your hand back to its original position.

Repeat the same steps with the opposite arm. Alternate back and forth until you have completed your reps.

Normally I am not an advocate for many 1-arm movements for muscle building, but this one is great for creating overload to the biceps.

These should be done standing, for several reasons. First, you should be able to lift more weight if you are standing versus seated. More weight means more overload.

Also, sitting down while performing these could add unnecessary stress to the lower back you do not need. These add a different “twist” than do straight-bar curls.

With dumbbells, you can twist your wrist at the top of the exercise, when you contract the bicep.