What Are the Best Tricep Exercises?

Tricep anatomy

Biceps get all of the attention, but triceps are just as important to building stronger arms. They can also help remove the flab in the back of arms too. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what are the best tricep exercises?

 

The Best Tricep Exercises: 

study out of the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse set out to do just that. Researchers tested each of the following common tricep exercises to determine which led to the most muscle activation using EMG electrodes: triangle push-ups, kickbacks, dips, overhead tricep extensions, rope pushdowns, bar pushdowns, lying barbell triceps extensions and closed grip bench press. Here are the results:

best tricep exercises

The winner, by a healthy margin, was triangle push-ups. As you can see in the chart above, muscle activation elicited by the other exercises were expressed as a percentage of triangle push-ups. Kickbacks, for example, caused 87% of the activation caused by triangle push-ups. Here are video demonstrations of the top 3 exercises.

  1. The Triangle Push-up
  2. Kickbacks
  3. Dips

 

Conclusion:

Consider adding triangle push-ups to your program in order to strengthen your triceps. Fortunately, little equipment is needed to perform it (or the other top exercises), so get started!

 

Citation:

http://www.acefitness.org/certifiednewsarticle/1562/ace-sponsored-research-best-triceps-exercises/