welcome to the house of hypertrophy how should you train to maximize triceps hypertrophy the triceps are roughly 2.5 times larger than the biceps so undeniably play a crucial role in enhancing arm size in this video we'll be deconstructing the latest scientific research examining how different compound exercises and isolation exercises may impact triceps hypertrophy so that by the end you'll have a clear riew of how you may train for complete triceps growth the triceps can be trained with compounds and isolation exercises compound exercises involve movement at two or more joints while isolation exercises primarily involve movement
at one joint an excellent study from 2020 gives us a fascinating insight into how compound and isolation exercise is compared for triceps growth 43 men either train the barbell bench press only the barbell skull crusher only the bench press and then the skull crusher user or the skull crusher and then the bench press these were the training variables used in the sessions unsurprisingly the groups that trained the bench press saw the best PC major growth but it is highly interesting that training skull crushes before the bench press led to slightly less Peet growth in performing
the reverse of this presumably Skull Crushers fatigued the triceps to where it subsequently became more of a limiting factor in the bench press thus compromising the PEC stimulus as for the triceps just training the bench press produced lower gains than the other groups that involved Skull Crushers interestingly the order in which the bench press and skull crusher was performed didn't have a major impact on triceps growth looking at these results you may say although the bench press grows the triceps we get much better results from the skull crusher so there's nothing special about the bench
press however this isn't necessarily the correct conclusion why well the researchers examined growth across each of the three triceps heads for the long head Skull Crushers grew this very well something the bench press failed to do for the medial head both exercises grew this muscle but the percentages imply its growth what's better from Skull Crushers but for the lateral head the bench press actually grew this head very well something which the skull crusher failed to do accordingly the special thing about the bench press is when compared to a skull crusher at least although it doesn't
develop the long and medial heads as well it does a better job growing the lateral head now this data just involved the barbell bench press with a two-time shoulder width grip what about closer grips and even other compound exercises with closer grips it's possible they enhance overall triceps growth there's no research comparing wider to closer grip bench pressing for actual triceps hypertrophy all we have is EMG research that inconsistently observes higher triceps activity with closer grips either way could closer grips change the pattern of growth across the three triceps heads a 2013 paper delivers potential
Insight subjects perform the neutral grip dumbbell bench press this exercise is performed in the same plane as close grip barbell benching no not that plane I'm talking about plane of movement both of them occur in what we call the sagittal plane using T2 weighted Imaging to infer muscle activity which has been documented to have some associations with actual muscle hypertrophy it was found the size displayed High lateral and medial head activity this aligns with the data on wide grip barbell bench pressing that finds similar lateral and medial head hypertrophy as for the long head activity
was much lower and indeed the researchers found after training this exercise for 12 weeks L head thickness did not increase thus just like the wide grip bench press closer grips likely fail to meaningfully grow the L head there's likely a sound reason for this all three heads of the triceps cross the elbow joint so can all contribute to Elbow extension but the L head additionally crosses over the shoulder joint so can partially contribute to shoulder extension and adduction during the bench press we need to lift the bar and this involves flexing the shoulder since the
L head is partially involved in shoulder extension a strong contraction of it would fight against us trying to lift and flex the shoulder so it makes sense the nervous system wouldn't highly activate this muscle this logic extends to all other horizontal pressing compound exercises machine chest press variations and push-up variations it even applies the incline presses decline presses and dips so all of these exercises probably won't train the L head much rather the lateral and medial heads are likely trained in comparable ways to the bench press what about vertical presses like overhead presses since overhead
presses require us to flex and autod duct the shoulder to lift the load a strong lad contraction may still fight against this and pull the arm down so perhaps this also not trains much here yet the shoulder angles traversed with vertical presses are different from horizontal presses and without direct research I'm unsure if this Alters things as for the lateral and medial heads I'm unaware of any reason to believe they wouldn't be trained at least fairly decently with vertical presses but how this compares to horizontal presses remains to be determined by Future research nevertheless summarizing
this section compound exercises will absolutely contribute to developing your triceps and we saw direct evidence horizontal presses are likely great for the lateral head however it does seem likely we need isolation triceps exercises to maximize triceps hypertrophy we saw barbell Skull Crushers have been documented to grow the long and medial heads quite well and something we've yet to mention is data suggesting this likely extends to the dumbbell skull crusher very quickly this 2012 paper found the dumbbell variation produced the low activity of the lateral head which aligns with the results of the barbell skull crusher
producing minimal lateral head hypertrophy as for the long and medial heads the dumbbell skull crusher produced High activity of both which aligns with the results of Baro skull crushes producing great hypertrophy of both of them but what about other triceps isolation exercises fortunately we have some great research here a 2022 paper out of Japan recruited 21 men with one arm they trained overhead extensions with their other arm they trained push Downs a supern hand grip was used and both exercises move the elbow from 90 to 0° here were the training variables used subjects progressively overloaded
whenever they could to keep training hard with the Reps subjects were able to lift heavier absolute loads on the push down through out the study despite this LGH head hypertrophy was better for the overhead extensions I think it's not a stretch to suggest the strongest explanation for this is stretch as the researchers implied in the paper and as seen in previous House of hypertrophy videos growing evidence suggests training at long muscle lengths can build more muscle remember although all three heads cross the elbow joint the long head additionally crosses the shoulder joint this actually means
elevating the arm to an overhead position lengthens the L head such that overhead extensions train the L head at a relatively more stretched position compared to push Downs as for the lateral and medial heads the researchers had to combine both heads into one measurement due to problems with differentiating between them it was found this combined lateral and medial head growth was also better with the overhead extensions this was an unexpected finding and it's currently not Crystal Clear what could explain this after all the lateral and medial heads just crossed the elbow so shoulder position isn't
really going to influence how much they are stretched it is also unfortunate that the researchers couldn't differentiate between the lateral and medial heads as remember Skull Crushers fail to grow the lateral head much so it would have been interesting to see how lateral head growth looked with these two exercises anyhow this study nonetheless indicates overhead extensions may be an excellent exercise for the triceps this study measured muscle volume which is a three-dimensional measure that considers all muscle regions but an interesting question is although overhead extension seem to produce overall more growth could there be some
differences in the precise regions grown between the two movements this is where a 2018 Greek paper can assist us nine individuals were recruited and like the last study one arm trained overhead extensions while the other arm trained push downs but unlike the last study the elbow angles traversed by both exercises were different here were the training variables used and Progressive overload occurred the researchers only took measurements from the L head lad thickness at 50% and 60% of approximately the upper arm length lean towards the overhead extensions L head cross-sectional area at the lower portion also
favored the overhead extensions but quite fascinatingly cross-sectional area at the upper portion was actually better with the pushdowns therefore these results suggest the two exercises May grow different parts of the L head it's important to mention this study has its differences from the previous one but one similarity is that both papers had each arm trained with one of the exercises this is actually a great thing to do since it means the same subjects performed both exercises this means that all non-training factors that influence muscle growth such as genetics nutrition and outside lifestyle factors were equal
between both conditions after all your right arm doesn't sleep more or even more protein than your left arm but this Greek paper was merely conducted on nine subjects while the other paper included 21 subjects the Greek paper was also just 6 weeks while the other paper was double this duration finally besides the range of motion differences between the studies the Japanese paper had subjects Alternate which exercise was trained first every session which is the perfect thing to do contrastingly the Greek paper had subjects perform the push that Downs before the overhead extensions every session this
is a potential problem since the general fatigue from performing the push Downs first could have slightly impaired the overhead extension stimulus therefore if this study had subjects alternate back and forth which arm was trained first each session better hypertrophy might have potentially been seen for the overhead extensions considering all this it's quite clear we want to put more stock into the paper from Japan however I'm currently not going to write off the regional lad growth differences between the two movements earlier we saw this graph established from Skull Crushers suggesting it may indeed be true that
some regions of a tricep head could display greater activity than other parts furthermore the notion that overhead extensions better develop the lower parts of the L head might make sense remember that overhead extensions place the L head at a more stretched position and we have evidence that training muscles at stretched positions better develop the the lower portions of the muscle for example this paper compared preacher curls with a range of motion that train the muscle at a shortened position to a range of motion that achieved a relatively more lengthened position growth of the biceps at
the 50% region was similar between both but growth at the 70% region was better with a lengthened position if you only wanted to train with one isolation triceps exercise I think it's reasonable to recommend overhead extensions based on the data we've overviewed the scientific papers dissected used cables but freeway overhead extensions are a possibility there are no direct comparisons between the two but based on one small study of five participants dumbbell overhead extensions resulted in appreciable triceps hypertrophy lad penti angle also increased appreciably and this measure is believed to represent the addition of contractile units
in parallel which is what a large part of muscle growth is now some of you might be wondering what about Skull Crushers Skull Crushers achieve a better stretch of the long head compared to push downs but overhead extensions achieve a better stretch than both so in the absence of other research I suspect overhead extensions may still be better as for the lateral and medial heads it's difficult to say how their growth May compare between the two movements hopefully future research fills this Gap if you don't like overhead extensions rest assured you're still going to grow
your triceps respectably with skull crushes or push Downs so feel free to alternatively train with either if you're someone who's happy to perform more than one isolation triceps exercise this could be worthwhile due to the possibility of it resulting in more uniform triceps growth although we know it had notable limitations the Greek paper hints at the combination of overhead extensions with push Downs possibly enabling the complete development of the upper and lower lad regions besides this the combination of overhead extensions with Skull Crushers may not be bad either as something we haven't mentioned about the
data on Skull Crushers is it displayed High lad activity at the uppermost portion it is of course not impossible to have all three in a well constructed program something we also can't rule out is potential regional growth differences in the lateral and medial heads between these exercises making the combination of them possibly ideal for this speculative reason too there are also other triceps exercises in existence we've largely focused on these three since they're currently the most studied but you could experiment with any alternatives you think might work one final study potentially further supports the effectiveness
of training the triceps with a few different exercises 22 individuals were assigned into either a nonv varied or Vari group both groups trained three times per week for 8 weeks the nonv varied group involved just training the triceps push down while the varied group involved training the push Downs on Monday cable seated extensions on Wednesday and cable Kickbacks on Friday overall triceps thickness was measured across three regions and the varied group tended to see better results the more favorable gains for the varied group could be entirely just a result of the inclusion of the cable
SE extension which trains the L head at a more stretched position rather than the variation itself causing this even still it's still nonetheless demonstrates how this combination of isolation movements tended to produce more favorable gains than merely training the push Downs I should point out that bench press variations were also trained by both groups and we can be confident this contributed to some of the growth but I'm assuming the differences between groups were predominantly driven by the triceps isolation exercises if you're searching for further guidance on programming to obtain your desired physique it can be
tricky and timec consuming however our highquality partner the alpha progression app can help you generate an evidence-based training program that's 100% custom to your needs in less than 3 minutes simply specify the equipment you have how often and how long you want to train for and if you want to focus or neglect certain muscles there are even Advanced options to periodize your train training and Implement de loads there are over a quadrillion input combinations on which your plan is based and with the touch of a few buttons you can customize things further through analyzing your
past performance the app provides Progressive overload recommendations during your workouts to help you continue making gains the app automatically generates graphs that display your long-term progression thereby saving you time from having to manually track your progression the link in the comments and description gives you a 2E free trial of all the premium features and if you like it and decide to go beyond the link gives you 20% off a subscription I truly believe the app is awesome and the reviews speak to this feel free to check out our recent deep dive into chest hypertrophy or
another piece of content at the house of hypertrophy
