Many times, when we think of someone having massively strong arms, our minds naturally wander first to the biceps. The biceps are like the peak of a large mountain. The peak is an awesome sight, and it’s probably what most visitors to the mountain will remember the most. While the peak of the mountain is a great sight, it wouldn’t be tall if it weren’t built on top of an even more massive base.
Taking this mountain analogy a bit further, the height of the mountain is measured starting from it’s base all the way to the top. Without a large base, the peak wouldn’t be so impressive to look at. Sure, it might be a little interesting, but at the end of the day, people will be drawn to the peaks that are higher off the ground. Also, since the base is so much wider than the peak, it will also make up a majority of the size of the mountain.
As you might have guessed, the base of the mountain that makes up your upper arms is the triceps. The triceps make up the larger portion of our upper arms and take up about 2/3 of the total mass. This gives the effect of having larger arms and also makes the biceps look much more impressive than they would without this larger base. When we hear someone say “look at how huge that guy’s arms are”, it’s really his triceps that are creating most of the effect.
As the name implies, the triceps are made up of three heads that contract to straighten your arm. The triceps connect to the shoulder and run down the back of your arm. A large tendon connects the bottom of your triceps to your forearm, and as your triceps contract, they pull this tendon to straighten your arm.
The triceps actually have 2 main functions. The first function, as described above, is to straighten your arm from a bent position. To understand the second function of the triceps, raise your hand above your head with the elbow straight. Now, without bending your elbow, lower your hand down in front of you all the way until it comes to a rest at your side. This second motion is the pullover motion and is covered in the pullover movements such as the pullover and press.
If you take a moment and look through the descriptions of the tricep exercises listed throughout this site, you might notice that most are isolation exercises. You’ll notice that there are a lot of extensions and pushdown exercises, but a good portion of your tricep training will come from exercises that aren’t even listed here as tricep exercises.
The reason for this is that your triceps will get a significant workout when you do pressing exercises for your chest and shoulders. This means that exercises like bench press, dips, incline press, military press, shoulder dumbbell presses, and all the other upper body presses will put a significant amount of stress on your triceps. The problem is, your triceps are smaller than your chest and shoulder muscles and tend to wear out more quickly.
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