They may look good but it’s not all about the biceps. Did you know that your triceps are about twice the size of your biceps? And they are incredibly important as almost all upper-body exercises use them.
Why Train Triceps?
The triceps muscle makes up 60% of your upper arm, making it a crucial part of the body to exercise regularly, and one that you really ought to pay attention to if you’re looking to tone, define, and strengthen your upper body.
The triceps muscle lies along the back of your upper arm and is twice the size of your bicep muscles, with more muscle fibers per square inch.
The triceps start at the top of the shoulder blade and the arm bone, running down the back of the arm bone, crossing the elbow and inserting into the back of one of our forearm bones. These muscles help stabilize your shoulder joint, and they act as an extensor of the elbow and shoulder.
As your triceps become stronger, the strength and stability of your shoulders and elbows also increases. This in turn will increase the functionality, flexibility and range of motion of your arm, improving your performance in everyday tasks, as well as sports which require arm movements and upper-body strength like tennis, swimming, and basketball.
Most, if not all upper-body exercises will recruit the triceps in some way.
4 Reasons to Train Triceps More
1. Triceps make up 2/3 of your arm
Triceps are the largest muscle group in your arms, running from the elbow to the shoulder. With a main role to straighten the elbow, triceps are made of three bundles of muscles – which means they have more potential to grow. The most prominent are the lateral and long heads which run from the shoulder to the elbow. The last head, known as the brachialis or medial head, is under the lateral and long heads. It is usually only visible when looking at the arms from the side. Therefore training these three bundles of muscles will make your arms appear much larger and toned.
2. To help with complex weight training exercises
The triceps are involved in many complex weight training exercises that target different muscle groups (e.g. Military presses, half presses, bench presses, dips). Despite having a strong chest or back, weak triceps can cause imbalanced muscle growth and risk injury, With stronger triceps, you can perform and progress better.
3. Shoulder stability and functional movements
The triceps are often overlooked when it comes to shoulder stability. In fact, it is attached to the shoulder blades and is involved in rotation and adduction of the arm. Having strong triceps can help stabilize the shoulder joint at the top of the humerus (bone of the upper arm).
The triceps also fixate the elbow joint when the forearm and hand are used for fine movements like writing. More specifically, the three bundles of muscles have different functions – the long head for force generation, the lateral for movements requiring high-intensity force and the medial for more precise, low-force movements.
4. Isolation & Convenience
This is much less of a reason but more of a fun fact: Triceps muscles can be worked out individually from any other muscle group on your body. Specifically, the tricep extension targets only the triceps without any assistance from other muscle groups. This can help strengthen the tricep muscles and even out any unbalances between sides. The tricep extension exercise can also be done with different types of resistance and in various positions, making it a convenient exercise to incorporate into your workout routine.
Here are some of the exercises which work on the triceps:
Diamond pushups
Side dips
Plank Shoulder Taps
Bench Press
Tricep Extensions
Tricep Kickbacks
Skull Crushers
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