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Tricep Exercise Articles: This weeks feature tricep workout & tricep muscle building articles are located on the tricep articles page. We update our tricep workout articles often so check back for updates. Recommended reading
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Tricep muscle tension - keep it pumped!Article by: Robert Jennings You should always perform your tricep muscle building exercises with a full range of motion right? Well not necessarily. When I am building any muscle group I like to mix things up a little. I chaneg my entire workout every 6 weeks, I switch between compound and isolation exercises and I use another technique that I like to call "shortening". To put it simply, shortening is cutting the top and bottom off your range of motion in a tricep exercise or any muscle building exercise. The aim of shortening is keep "the pump" in the muscle group you are hitting. This essentially keeps the muscle tense, full of blood and working 100% throughout the entire set. When I'm doing my shortening tricep exercises I like to do them a slow as possible with strict technique. So what's so good about shortening your tricep exercises? Shortening your exercise keep the tricep muscle tension up and works you much harder. Many tricep exercises give you the chance to rest and relieve tension at some stage in the movement. For example at the top of a tricep dip you can lock your elbows and hang there and while doing a tricep kickback you can let the dumbell hang at the bottom of the exercise. When you do this you are allowing the tricep muscle to rest briefly and the blood to flow out. You are not hitting your triceps as hard as you could be! When I say shorten the movement I mean you only have to shorten it enough so you are still using tricep muscle to contro the weight. Let's take tricep kickbacks for example. Instead of letting the dumbell go all the way down stop the movement when your forearm is at about 6in for being vertical. Pause, and then move the weight back up again. You will find this really challenging and don't be surprised if you can't move as much weight as usual. You will find that even though you can't move as much weight, you are getting a much better workout. Now I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I used the shortening tricep exercise technique to mix up my workout. I don't use it all the time. The reason for this is that it's really hard for you to add weight using the shortening technique. When you add weight in any exercise you might just have to let your technique slip on the last few reps to get it up there. You can't let your technique slip when doing shortening reps, it defeats the purpose! So by all means try shorting your tricep exercises, but don't do it all the time! So if you've never tried shortening your tricep exercises I urge you to try it next time you're in the gym. Remember, don't shorten the movement too much or you won't get the benefits. And slow down, take a few seconds for each rep and pause at the top and bottom of the movement. Really concentrate on the muscle you're hitting (in this case your triceps). Knowledge + hard work will see you achieve your goals. Build those triceps!
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