Build Big Arms by Exercising your Triceps

If you want to build big thick arm muscles then you need to focus on your Triceps.

Your triceps if you don’t know already take up two thirds of your upper arm so it makes sense to work on these muscles if you want to increase the size of your arms.

Biceps are what I call vanity muscles and are great to work too but if you are looking for mass then work your triceps.

Biceps are actually a pretty small muscle and even though they are the first muscle you see or look at when someone is walking towards you or you ask them to make a muscle, nothing will make your arms more massive than hitting your triceps with some great mass building exercises.

The triceps are made up of 3 different heads, a smaller outer head (lateral), a smaller thick inner head (medial) and a longer thick head (long head) that runs from the top of your upper arm to your elbow.

To get mass in your arm you want to work on the inner heads more than the outer head.

The outer head will help to give your arm that horseshoe look when flexed but the inner bigger triceps heads will build your arm size up quicker.

Exercises that will help you build size the quickest are close grip bench press and skull crushers which are sometimes called French press.

I prefer to do skull crushers because if you are doing bench press for chest already then your triceps are already getting worked similar to close grip bench.

Skull crushers really isolate and pump a lot of blood into the tricep area. To perform skull crushers I prefer to use an EZ curl or cambered curling bar which is shorter than a barbell.

You can use a barbell for this exercise but you might find the straight bar harder on your wrists and that is why I use the EZ or cambered curling bar.

To perform a skull crusher you will need a flat bench and your loaded weight bar. I place the weights on the floor at the end of the bench where my head will be.

Lay back on the bench on your back and reach back and down onto the floor picking the barbell up and bringing it up over your body so that your arms are pointing up towards the ceiling holding the bar so the back of your hands are facing towards your head, palms towards your legs.

Bending at the elbow lower the weight towards your skull. This would be why this exercise is called a skull crusher.

Make sure your upper arms stay still and your elbows keep pointing toward the ceiling. When the bar is just about hitting your skull raise the bar back to the starting position.

That was one repetition. A good tweak for this exercise is to position your upper arms so that they are moved slightly pointing towards your head from vertical to keep more tension on your triceps when performing the exercise.

If you do chest exercises on a regular basis make sure to work your triceps on the same day so you don’t over train them and give your triceps plenty of time to recover and rebuild.

Since you are working them on the same day as your chest workout you won’t have to do as many sets and can jump right into some heavier weight as your triceps will be warmed up from the chest exercises.

Do 3 heavy sets of triceps after your chest and that should be plenty. Work your chest and triceps twice a week and you should see some growth.   

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