These Are the Three Best Triceps Exercises
Arm day can be one of the most fun days at the gym, but don’t limit yourself to just biceps exercises . Your triceps, located on the back of your arm, are an even larger muscle in your arm, and they’re what give you the strength to lift objects overhead or perform a series of push-ups. Here I’ll share some of my favorite triceps exercises, as well as what the triceps are and what they do.
What is triceps?
The triceps brachii (“triceps arm”) is a muscle on the back of the shoulder. Its main function is to straighten the elbow.
Each head has its own point of origin at the top of the humerus: the lateral and medial heads originate on the top of the humerus (shoulder). The long head actually starts at the shoulder blade.
The three heads of the triceps fuse together into a large, flat tendon at the bottom of the arm, above the elbow. This is what creates the “horseshoe” shape that is sometimes seen when someone curls their triceps. This tendon continues downwards and attaches to the olecranon process of the ulna, or, to put it more clearly, to the pointed part of the elbow.
Unlike the deltoids, where the three heads perform different movements, all three heads of the triceps are worked quite well in any exercise in which you straighten your arm.
What are all these special exercises for the “long head”?
Because the long head of the triceps originates from the shoulder blade and not the shoulder bone, you can stretch the long head slightly by raising your arms above your head. As I said in my article on the best biceps exercises, you’ll likely get the best growth stimulus by training the muscle in a stretched position. This is why it is sometimes said that overhead triceps exercises are better at “working the long head.”
Will triceps exercises help tone my shoulders?
By the same logic, people do crunches to get rid of belly fat (which doesn’t work), and people do triceps exercises to get rid of “chicken wings” or “bingo arms.” It doesn’t really work that way anyway.
The only thing that will help you reduce fat in a specific part of your body, such as your shoulder, is to reduce fat throughout your entire body. You have no meaningful control over where your body stores fat; you have little control over the amount of total fat.
Strengthening a muscle can make it bigger and more defined (like that horseshoe where the muscle bellies meet the tendons). This doesn’t change the wobbly look of your arm when it’s relaxed, but it does mean you can flex your muscles and show off a little.
Best Exercise for Triceps: Dips
I’m going to give the crown to failure here. Below I’ll list a few barbell, dumbbell and cable variations, but if I could only pick one triceps exercise? These would be failures.
Dips are an exercise in which your arms are at your sides, on the handles, and you bend and straighten your elbows to move your body up and down.
Dips are a challenging exercise that are traditionally performed using just your body weight, but you can make it easier by using a resistance band or a special push-up machine. Once you are strong enough to do dips easily, start adding weight. Grab a dive belt (your gym probably has one in the accessory bin somewhere) and put as many plates on the chain as you want. Weighted dips are a seriously underrated exercise, and as a side effect, they tend to improve your bench press.
Push-ups are sometimes divided into two categories: “chest push-ups,” where you lean your torso forward and flare your elbows out, and “triceps push-ups,” where you keep your body as upright as possible, keeping your elbows close to your body. Both are great. Here’s a video on how to do triceps push-ups:
If you don’t have push-up handles on hand (or gymnastics rings, which will also work), the next best bodyweight exercise is triceps dips. These are push-ups where your hands are close to each other and your elbows are pressed to your waist.
Best exercise for the long head of the triceps: overhead extensions.
Since the long head attaches to the shoulder blade (on the underside, near the shoulder joint), perhaps the best way to train it is to hold your arms overhead. A 2023 study found that overhead triceps extensions caused greater hypertrophy (change in size) of the triceps than push-ups. Interestingly, the growth affected not only the long head, but also all three heads of the triceps.
Whatever the reason, I would recommend overhead extensions if you like the idea of performing the most “scientific” or “optimal” triceps exercise. (Although, to be fair, people get great results doing a variety of triceps exercises, so you don’t have to stick with this exercise if you don’t like it.)
This video shows a version of the exercise that can be done on a cable machine, but a dumbbell triceps extension will also work.
Best Barbell Exercise for Triceps: Close-Grip Bench Press
The triceps are used in all pressing exercises, including the bench press and overhead press. I like barbell exercises and I like the overhead press, so I personally would prefer a strict overhead press if I was just picking something for myself.
But I’m going to be a little more fair to the fitness community at large and put in a good word for the classic triceps exercise, the close-grip bench press.
The bench press uses many different muscles, but the main drivers are the pectoral muscles (chest), which bring your arms together and in front of you; and, of course, triceps to straighten your elbows. The wider your grip, the more you need to engage your pecs, and the narrower your grip, the more you need to engage your triceps.
This means that most people choose a medium grip width on the bar (usually hands next to or inside the rings ) to get the best of both worlds. But as an accessory, you can perform the press with a close grip , with your hands barely shoulder-width apart.