The Best & Worst TRICEPS Exercises (Ranked Using Science)

what are the best and worst triceps exercises for muscle growth well in this video I'll be ranking 20 of the most popular movements on a tier list from s for super to F for fail and at the end I'll Crown one exercise as the best of the best and one as the worst of the worst and to make sure your favorite tricep exercise doesn't end up in F tier it needs to take three boxes one it must provide high tension especially in the stretched position two it needs to feel good meaning it doesn't cause pain

and it has a nice smooth resist resistance profile three it needs to have a simple progression that means you can easily add some weight or a rep from week to week now as I'm sure you know there are three heads of the triceps hence the tri prefx there's the lateral head the medial head and the long head the long head beefs up your triceps from the rear the lateral head gives the triceps that rant shape and the medial head runs down the middle adding shape to the arm as a whole and so when we're ranking

exercises we'll need to consider which movements will emphasize which aspect to ensure proportional development let's start with the most popular triceps exercise the press down press Downs will hit all three heads of the triceps but probably grow the medial and lateral heads a little better than the long head there are three main ways people do these using a rope using a bar and using a reverse grip the advantage of using a rope is that you can really drive the handles apart at the bottom which will help some people feel a harder contraction in their triceps

granted this motion is mainly happening at the wrists so I don't think it's adding a whole lot of real contractile benefit to the triceps it's more of a mind muscle connection thing the downside of using the Rope is that you just won't be able to load as much tension onto the triceps earlier this week I did an experiment where I tested how many reps I could get using the Rope versus using the bar while keeping the weight in my technique exactly the same I got 12 reps with the rope and 16 reps with the bar

that's four extra reps at the same weight simply by using a bar and that's because the Rope attachment is far less rigid and stable and so some of the tension coming from the cable stack is being lost through having to stabilize a loop rope with your forearms and so while the Rope might gain a point in the feels good Department it loses a point in the overload Department the Rope press down is going in B tier with the bar press down the movement will feel a lot more stable which will direct more attention to your

triceps the cable will provide more or less even tension on the triceps throughout the range of motion and the bar should actually help you feel more locked in which is a good thing and you can easily overload by adding a little weight or a rep from week to week the bar press down is very close to being an S tier but because it never actually gets the tricep steps into a big stretch at the top it isn't quite as good as some of the other options that we'll cover in a minute and for that reason

it's going in a tier but it's definitely an exercise that I strongly recommend and I do myself pretty much every single week now the reverse grip press down is the worst of the three options in my opinion that's because turning your palms up won't actually change much for your triceps biomechanically but it will limit their strength output especially if your grip becomes a limiting factor in my experiment I actually only got 10 reps with an underhand grip making it the weakest of the three options now I know some people do do really feel this variation

hitting their triceps better and that's probably because with an underhand grip you can get your forearm bones out of the way at the top but I really doubt it's worth the reduction in overload potential and so the reverse grip press down is going in C tier the overhead cable triceps extension is a similar movement where you're just bending and extending your elbow except for one crucial difference you move your arms up overhead this actually makes a world of difference for the long head that's because the long head is the only head that crosses both the

elbow joint and the shoulder joint so all three heads of the triceps straighten the elbow out but only the long head has a second function it also performs something called shoulder extension which is when you move your arm down that's exactly why you'll always feel your triceps working on dumbbell pullovers the lateral and medial heads aren't doing anything but the long head is working very hard alongside your lats and your pecs to pull your arms down and so because it crosses the shoulder it'll be more contracted when your arm is down like in a press

down or in a kickback and it'll be more stretched when your arm is up overhead you can even try this out for yourself put your arm back behind your torso and you'll feel your long head get rock hard and you can lift your arm up overhead and you'll feel a really big stretch that's exactly what the overhead extension is doing it's putting the long head under a much bigger stretch but it's even better than that because the cable also provides super high tension in that stretched position and I think that's why this 2023 study found

that overhead extensions caused about 40% more triceps growth than press Downs getting that long head into a more lengthened position seems to be doing something important for muscle growth the overhead cable extension is our first triceps exercise going in s tier now if you switch the bar out for a rope you'll still get all the benefits of training the long head in a more lengthen position but again the Rope will limit your ability to overload the triceps to some extent I don't actually think it' make a huge difference over the long term as long as

you're pushing hard and you're tracking your progress but I usually still prefer the bar and so I'll put the overhead cable extension with the rope in a tier the katana triceps extension gets its name from how you draw a pair of Japanese katana swords where Cross Your Arms overhead and grab the opposite side's cable the best way to get into this exercise is to grab each side's cable with the same hand and then spin around 180° while crossing your arms over or you can start with the cables crossed in front of you and then duck

underneath and step through either way if you start with the cables at around or just above waist height you should end up with your arms in a position about 30 to 40° forward relative to being flared out to the sides this is called the scapular plane which feels really comfortable for a lot of people these also have the rare benefit of hitting both arms individually while still saving on time by getting both sides done at once so that can be great for addressing any left right imbalances while still not taking twice as long these are

definitely a personal favorite and I'd probably put them in s tier but because they require a bit more setup and they can have a bit of a learning curve I'm going to go ahead and tentatively drop them back to a tier the dumbbell French Press will also get the long head very stretched and can be a bit faster to set up than cables I like to do these seated because you'll be more stable meaning you'll be able to direct more of that tension coming from the dumbbell directly to the triceps one slight downside compared to

the cables though is that the dumbbell will provide a circular resistance path meaning you get a lot of tension on the triceps at the bottom and less tension at the top it's not such a bad thing though because the stretched aspect does seem to be more important anyway but I still prefer the more uniform feel of the cables my main issue with these is that as your triceps get really strong the dumbbells may get so big and bulky that they're kind of awkward to handle and it can put some unwanted strain on the wrists I

still like the French press and I still include these periodically but I do prefer the cables and I'm going to put these in B tier doing these one arm at a time actually solves a few of those issues this way you can find a good angle to point your elbows in that feels a little more comfortable on your shoulders and because you're doing one arm at a time the dumbbell will be less bulky and awkward they still don't offer the same smooth tension as cables do but they're a really good option especially if you only

have access to dumbbells one arm dumbbell tricep extensions are going in a tier all right so what about Skull Crushers well let's see they offer super high tension while the triceps are most stretched especially if you Arc the bar back behind your head instead of literally stopping at your skull they should feel good especially if you use an easy bar which can ease up some unwanted strain on the wrists and they're a great movement for overloading the triceps as you can always add a little weight or a rep from week to week and even though

you don't get uniform tension on the triceps you can fix that by starting the range of motion with your elbows slightly back rather than straight up this will immediately pull some tension into the fibers and from there you can Arc the weight back I think this is my favorite free weight triceps exercise and even though some people find them a little less smooth than cables I think they're great I do them a lot and yeah I think Skull Crushers belong in s tier dumbbell Skull Crushers are the exact same movement except you get to train

each arm individually which is nice I'm not exactly sure why but the dumbbell skull crusher always feels a little more Awkward to me than an easy bar or straight bar skull crusher maybe it's because the dumbbells are free moving and in that lying overhead position I just find them harder to control so while on paper they should also be an S tier in practice I find them a little more awkward and for that reason I'm knocking them back to a tier now the JM press is an interesting one people who like this exercise really like

this exercise I think it's a bit overrated in the strength and powerlifting space it's really just a hybrid between a close grip bench press and a skull crusher instead of lowering the bar back behind your head like in a skull crusher or lowering the bar down to your chest like in a close grip bench you meet in the middle and lower the bar down to your chin area I don't know I've been trying these for years and I always feel a little elbow pain or at least a little elbow discomfort whenever I do them so

they're losing a point in the feels good department for me because your arms won't be as far back behind your head the JM press also won't get the long head quite as St eted as a skull crusher will and I think if you're already doing some bench press and you're already doing some kind of overhead extension I'm not sure that you really need a JM press that said I am a fan of hitting the triceps from a variety of different shoulder angles and I do think that it's a solid lift that should have some strength

carry over to your bench press all things considered I'm going to put the JM press in B tier as a muscle builder the Smith machine JM press fixes a few of those issues for me where you're locked into a fixed movement path I do find it easier to really focus on using my triceps to move the weight whereas with the barbell my PC and delts can can sometimes take over more I like JM presses on the Smith machine a bit better personally and so I'm putting them in a tier triceps Kickbacks are one of the

very few exercises where you get to smash the triceps with the arm held back behind the Torso this is important because remember that the long head of the triceps will reach Peak stretch when the arms are up overhead but reach Peak contraction when the arms are held back behind the Torso so this far this is the first exercise we've covered that'll get the long head into a full squeeze a lot of people do Kickbacks bent forward but if you think about it biomechanically it's really the exact same thing as doing them more upright with the

arm kick back and even though there is research suggesting that the triceps respond better to Long muscle lengths it just isn't quite strong enough or robust enough for me to throw out every short and biased exercise plus you can still get the lateral and medial heads decently stretched here and the cable provides nice even tension throughout the range of motion they feel good to me and I prefer to do these with slightly higher reps and really focus on getting a big strong contraction in my triceps cable triceps Kickbacks are going in a here now if

you switch to a dumbbell you do make the exercise less effective that's because the dumbbell offers zero tension while the tricep is stretched and then tension increases as the muscle contracts this isn't great because we'd want to bias tension toward the stretched aspect as much as we can and the dumbbell kickback does the exact opposite that said I don't think this is quite as big of a deal as people make it seem the kickback is already better at overloading the shorten position so the fact that the dumbbells resistance curve leans into that isn't an automatic

deal breaker that said if you do have access to cables I I definitely think you should do cable Kickbacks instead if you only have access to dumbbells I think putting the dumbbell up overhead and doing overhead extensions will give you more bang for your buck dumbbell Kickbacks are a little overhated online in my opinion but they're still not one of my go-tos and I'm going to put them in C tier post grip dips are another exercise that'll work the triceps with the arms back behind the Torso so they offer a really strong contraction of the

long head but because the arms aren't up overhead the long head never really gets a deep stretch dips also don't feel the best to me I find my shoulders get a bit cranky if I do them too much or too heavy but I know tons of people who can do them with no problem the Dip's biggest upside is that as a compound exercise it's great for Progressive overload you can always add a rep or two from week to week and use a weight belt to add weight as you get stronger so the close grip dip

probably should be an A or S tier on paper but because it doesn't feel the best to me and I find my PEC and delts can easily take over I'm dropping it back to B tier bench dips work the triceps in a similar shoulder position and I do find these take my pecs and delts out of the movement much better so I can connect with my triceps a little more that said their fatal flaw is in the Progressive overload Department as you gain tricep strength the exercise simply isn't going to be challenging enough in a

normal rep range and then you'll need to add weight you can have a partner load some weight in your lap but I always find this a bit awkward to balance All Things Considered I'm putting the bench dip in C tier machine dips are actually pretty solid I don't do them a whole lot in my own training just because I like cable Kickbacks better but I might add these back in for my next training phase they're really just a more locked in version of a freee dip except if you can find a good machine you'll have

a little more stability which which might help you connect with your triceps better that said I still find my PEC and delts can take over on some of these machines so I'm going to leave the machine dip in be here as well okay the close grip bench press similar to the dip its main selling feature is its incredible capacity for Progressive overload as your triceps get stronger you'll be able to gradually add a little weight each week and keep your triceps growing for years to come the bar will provide consistent tension throughout the range of

motion and to me a close grip bench press feels great I actually find I can engage my triceps a lot better here than on dip that said there's a slight problem with the long head while presses will smash the medial and lateral heads extremely well the long head actually doesn't get hit all that hard that's because it's lengthening at the shoulder joint while simultaneously shortening at the elbow joint so while I really want to put the close grip bench press in s tier because it is such a great overloading movement I have to drop it

back to a tier just because I don't think that the long head will grow as well from these as they will from an overhead extension but I definitely think it's an exercise that's worth doing if you're trying to grow your triceps the close grip push-up has very similar biomechanics so it'll also hit the lateral and medial heads harder than the long head but the main issue with the push-up is that beyond the beginner stage it's just really hard to overload them without doing a ton of reps or having a partner load weight on your back

which can be a pain I'm putting these in C tier diamond push-ups make the movement considerably Harder by narrowing the base of support and most people can feel their triceps working harder with the more flared elbow position that it puts you in I actually really like diamond push-ups as a finisher exercise at the end of a workout where you can just go for as many reps as you can get they're actually a lot harder than they look and even though they're still not as good as a close grip bench press for Progressive overload I think

they're just good enough to get into B tier so here's what you need to know first pressing exercises will grow your triceps but probably won't be enough on their own to maximize triceps development especially not the long head second you should definitely do some triceps isolation work for maximum growth third the most effective isolation exercise is one that trains the triceps with the arms overhead this is so the long head can experience High tension in a deep stretch fourth for proportional triceps development you should hit them from a variety of different shoulder angles including at

least one mement with the arms up overhead and one with the arms either down at the sides like in a push down and or One movement with the arm held back behind the Torso like a cable Kickback now if I had to Crown just one exercise as the best of the best it'd have to be the overhead cable tricep extension this exercise will grow all three heads very effectively and it's actually been validated as a superior exercise in long-term hypertrophy studies and if I had to one is the worst of the worst I guess itd

have to be the dumbbell kickback it's not that it never has its place but I do think there are better options and you may have noticed that there were no F tier exercises in this video but there definitely were in my back tier list video so to make sure that you don't put them in your program you got to check out this video over here all right that's it for this one guys don't forget to leave me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you guys all

here in the next one