How to build big TRICEPS with Dumbbell and/or Bodyweight

For people, who cannot access to gym or prefer exercising at home or park but still want to get big triceps, please do not feel worry as there are exercises you can do and techniques you can apply to your training to get triceps! I will show you how you can build big triceps with just dumbbells and bodyweight.

When it comes to training for big arms, the triceps are very important as 3/5 of our arms’ size consist of triceps while the remaining size consist of biceps. Thus, you see how important triceps are in getting a big arm.

Triceps structure

Triceps are made of three smaller muscles, long head, lateral head and medial head. The long head is the one that is nearer to our back or our body. The lateral head is located at the side of arm, just behind the biceps long head. The medial head is near the elbow.

Significantly, you need to know that all triceps exercises will hit the three heads of the triceps as you cannot really isolate each head but there are exercises that you can do to put more stress on certain heads of the triceps.

Let’s get started!

Long head

Young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Long head is pivotal in showing arm muscles. This pose above clearly shows the arms muscles, biceps and triceps. Everything below the biceps is the long head of the triceps. If you have a small long head, your triceps will not show well, making you fat. Fortunately, as said, you cannot isolate a specific head of the triceps. Hence, although you do not particularly train this muscle, you will still have a seemingly big triceps. However, I still strongly recommend training all three heads of triceps to achieve the best-looking triceps as possible.

Dumbbell(s) : Any type of overhead presses, such as skull crushers with Dumbbell, overhead triceps extension.

Bodyweight : Bodyweight triceps extension

Lateral head

Lateral head is responsible for the separation of biceps and triceps at the side-view. It makes your arm looks considerably big when it is well-built. For people whose lateral head is not showing very clearly, there are two reason. First, your lateral head might really small, which means your overall triceps may be also small. Second, your arm is covered with excess fat so that you have to burn the fat off in order to see this muscle separating with the biceps.

Dumbbell(s) : kickback

Bodyweight : Close grip push-up, diamond push-up, Close grip push-up(knees on floor)

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Medial head

For medial head, dips or weighted dips are already good enough to hit this muscle. Also, this muscle is also highly stressed during any triceps exercise due to its position (near the elbow as said), so the elbow movement of the triceps exercises will always hit this muscle. This muscle also needs to be strong than the other two in order to prevent injury of elbow. Therefore, besides doing the long and lateral head exercises, you must also include dips in your workout.

Bodyweight : Bench dips, Dips

1)   For bench dips, get two chairs and place them opposite each other but with some distance apart.

2)   Put your legs on one chair and your arms full extended on the other chair. This is your starting position.

3)  Lower yourself down in 4-5s, pause yourself at there for 1-2s and move back to starting position in immediately. This is one repetition. Do 10-15reps for 3-4sets

4)   The instruction for bench dips is the same for Dips. The difference is only that your legs are not supported, which means you are doing dips with move bodyweight.

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How to workout:

1) Choose a few exercises that will target all three heads.

2) Do 10-15 repetitions for each set of each exercise.

3) A total of 10-12 sets of all exercises will be ideal.

Sample workout:

Bodyweight:

·       1-2 warmup set(s) for the triceps. You can do exercises like close grip push-up.

·       3 sets of bodyweight overhead extension

·       3 sets of bodyweight triceps extension

·       3 sets of close grip push-up

·       3 sets dips or weighted dips

*Note: If any of these exercises is too easy for you, try doing them with a slow tempo (etc. 5,1,1) or add weights (etc, a gallon of water container. Put it on your legs when doing bench dips. )

Dumbbells:

·       1-2 warm-up set(s) for the triceps. You can do exercises like triceps pulldown.

·       2 sets of overhead dumbbell extension

·       2 sets of dumbbell skull crusher

·       4 sets of close grip push-up or dumbbell close grip press (If you have heavy dumbbells)

·       4 sets of kickbacks

*Note: If any of these exercises is too easy for you, try doing them with a slow tempo (etc. 5,1,1)

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to comment and I'll reply you as soon as possible :)