Blow Up Your Arms With These 20 Triceps Moves

When you first started lifting weights to build up your arm muscles, the first thing you did to gauge your progress was probably a classic biceps flex. Whether you were a skinny teen or a late bloomer to the workout world, everyone turns into Arnold in front of a mirror after their first arm-centric training day. But only focusing on your biceps is a recipe for failure if you really want to sculpt a set of 3D arms and build real world strength. For both aesthetics and function, training your triceps is absolutely essential.

One of the reasons the triceps might not get as much loves as the biceps is due to the anatomy of your arms. The biceps are anteriorly positioned—that means they're on the front of your arm. Meanwhile, the triceps are located on the posterior of your arm, or the rear. While you can't see them immediately in the mirror, the triceps can make up to two-thirds of the muscle mass in your upper arm, making them much bigger than the biceps.

Think of your triceps as the three-headed monster that will make your arms pop. The muscle takes its name from those three heads—the long head, the medial head, and the lateral head—and is essential for elbow extension. That means just about any time you're straightening your arms, whether you're pressing or doing extensions, your triceps are going to be involved. All three heads connect to your elbow and humerus (your upper arm bone), while long head alone connects to your shoulder blade, which makes the muscle involved in overhead pressing movements.

There are plenty of ways to train your tris, too, although finding just the right muscle contraction isn't always easy. Remember that locking out your elbow and straightening your elbow are two different things; focus on keeping tension on your triceps and actively flexing them when you're in the straight-arm position.

Any movement that has you straightening your arm at the elbow will train your triceps, but there are plenty of ways to vary up that arm-straightening motion. Changing the angle of your arm relative to your torso can place different levels of stretch on the triceps muscle, and adding pauses, both at the top of reps and halfway through reps, can emphasize different phases of the contraction.

Not sure what you need to do to train your triceps? Consider these 17 moves.