I tried 5 exercises from Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool trainer to build Marvel-worthy arms—here's how I got on
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As Marvel tradition dictates, Ryan Reynolds hit the gym hard for Deadpool & Wolverine—he needs to fill out his famous red body stocking, after all. With the film landing in cinemas this summer, his trainer has shared five exercises to make your own t-shirt sleeves feel that little bit tighter.
If that's your goal, slip on a pair of the best gym shoes and give these moves from Don Saladino a go. They all target your triceps, which run down the back of your upper arm. And while big biceps may top many workout wishlists, the triceps are actually the larger of the two muscles, so neglect them at your peril if you want to grow your arms.
As TechRadar’s resident gym guinea pig, I resolved to give each exercise a try. And I came away with a clear favorite.
How to do Ryan Reynold’s trainer’s five triceps exercises
Prone kickback
Close-grip push-up
Suspension trainer triceps extension
Cross-body triceps extension
Single-arm overhead extension
Saladino shared these five exercises as alternative options to classics like the triceps push-down, helping you keep your workouts fresh and fun while working the muscle in new ways. Watch his videos below for a demonstration of each one in success.
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1. Prone kickback
Lie face down on a weight bench or other long, narrow, sturdy surface. Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your palms facing your body.
Keeping your elbows pinned to your side, lift your upper arms so they’re parallel to the ground and let your forearms hang vertically down.
Straighten both arms until they are parallel with the ground, then lower the weight back to the starting position.
My takeaways
Prone is a fancy way of saying “lying face down”, but comfort isn’t the priority here.
Putting yourself in a prone position, with your chest resting on a sturdy surface like a weight bench, can be a handy way to remove momentum from the equation during certain exercises.
Swapping bent-over rows for chest-supported rows, for example. In the former, you simply hinge at the hips then row a held weight to your belly button. The latter sees you lie face down on a weight bench set at an incline and row the weights upward from there.
The presence of the bench means you’re unable to jerk the weight upward by moving your torso, so the targeted muscles are forced to do all the heavy lifting. The same applies for the prone kickback, and the results can be humbling—I was forced to drop to a pair of 15lb ‘bells for three sets of 15.
A bonus top tip: Pause for a second at the top of each rep and give your triceps a squeeze to really feel the muscle contracting.
2. Close-grip push-up
Start in a high plank position with your weight spread between your hands and your toes. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your heels.
Place your hands closer together (roughly shoulder-width apart) than you would during a regular push-up.
Keeping your elbows pinned to your sides and your core tight (Saladino sees the push-up as a “moving plank”), lower your body as one until your chest is just above the floor.
Drive through your hands to return to the starting position.
My takeaways
The push-up can be overlooked because it’s so commonplace, but I’m a big fan. It’s an equipment-free compound exercise that recruits muscles across your chest, shoulders, triceps and core—it is a “moving plank”, after all. Better yet, you can do it anywhere (although expect funny looks if you start cranking out reps in the supermarket).
This close-grip variation tweaks the mechanics of the move to demand more pushing power from your triceps and shift emphasis away from your chest. For an added challenge, I tried it with a green 25lb weight plate resting across my shoulder blades, like the shell of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and my triceps were on fire after three sets of 8-12 reps.
3. Suspension trainer triceps extension
Set a suspension trainer so the handles are at approximately knee-height.
Stand just behind the straps with your feet together and hold a handle in each hand. The further away you stand from the straps, the more weight will be placed on your triceps and the harder the move will be.
Extend your arms parallel to the floor and lean forward slightly to put your weight through your hands.
Keeping your core tight, back flat and elbows facing forward, bend your arms to lower your head between the handles.
Push through your hands to straighten your arms again and return to the starting position.
My takeaways
I love gymnastic rings and, by extension, suspension trainers. When gyms shut during lockdown, I exclusively used the former to maintain my fitness, and they proved to be a fun and effective training tool.
I like this exercise because it’s an example of you moving you—when people talk about “functional fitness”, this is it. It delivers a targeted hit to the triceps, and the unsteadiness of the straps will bring smaller stabilizing muscles into play in your shoulders and core.
4. Cross-body triceps extension
Lie on your back on a weight bench or the floor. Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your arms extended toward the ceiling and your palms facing your knees.
Keeping your upper arms almost vertical, bend both arms at the elbows to slowly lower the dumbbells towards your chest.
Reverse this motion to return to the starting position.
My takeaways
The triceps brachii, to give the muscle its formal title, is so named because it has three heads—long, lateral and medial. Combined, they’re primarily responsible for straightening the arm at the elbow, but changing the angle of attack in your triceps training can shift the emphasis between them. So it pays to switch things up with exercises like this one.
This move felt different to others on this list, proving effective even with lighter weights (a pair of 25lb dumbbells, in my case). I felt it more in the long head of the triceps—the meaty part at the top of the arm, on the side closest to the torso.
5. Single-arm overhead extension
Set a cable machine to the closest setting to the floor and clip in a rope attachment.
Stand in front of the machine, face away from it and grasp one end of the rope attachment in your right hand.
Keeping your ribs down, raise your right elbow toward the ceiling so your arm is bent and you’re holding the rope behind your head.
Extend your right arm overhead, then slowly lower the rope back to the starting position.
My takeaways
This is my favorite of Saladino’s five exercises. The trainer says he likes this move because it requires a healthy dose of shoulder mobility, as well as being a top triceps-builder.
You’re working the triceps through a large range of motion for maximal muscle activation, and I enjoyed solid mind-muscle connection throughout the movement: in other words, I could feel my triceps working hard as I neared the end of each set.
Be warned though, this exercise is deceptive. For the first three reps I felt like I had chosen a weight that was too light, but by the time I approached my target of 15 reps my arm was shaking with effort enough to register on the Richter scale.
