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Tricep Exercises: The 8 Best Moves for Bigger, Stronger Arms
By Nadia Popescu, Strength & Conditioning Writer · Updated 5 August 2026
Your triceps make up about two thirds of your upper arm, which is why arms that never grow are usually a triceps problem rather than a biceps one. The muscle has three heads: the long head running from your shoulder blade down the back of the arm, plus the lateral and medial heads that attach to the upper arm bone itself. Only the long head crosses the shoulder joint, and that single anatomical detail decides how you should train it. Here are the eight tricep exercises worth your time, what each one actually does, and how to fit them into a week.
Why arm position matters more than exercise choice
Raise your arm overhead and the long head gets pulled long. Train it there and it grows more. Sumiaki Maeo's team put this to the test over 12 weeks of cable elbow extensions and found roughly 1.5 times greater long head growth in the overhead position than in the arms-down position, even though the overhead group lifted lighter weights. That's the single most useful thing anyone has learned about triceps training in the past decade.
The practical version: if you only ever do pushdowns, you're training two heads out of three properly and short-changing the biggest one.
One overhead move, one heavy press
Build every arm session around this pairing. One exercise with the elbows up by your ears for the long head, one compound press with the elbows tucked for load and strength. Everything else on this page is a useful accessory rather than a requirement.
The 8 best tricep exercises
1. Overhead cable or dumbbell extension
The one to prioritise. Face away from a low cable with a rope, or sit holding a single dumbbell in both hands, and let your hands drop behind your head until you feel a proper stretch across the back of your arm. Press up until your elbows lock, keeping them pointing forward rather than flaring wide.
Cables win here because tension stays constant through the stretched position, where a dumbbell goes slack at the top. If dumbbells are all you have, lean your torso forward slightly so gravity keeps pulling at the bottom. Our overhead tricep extension guide covers the setup in detail.
2. Skull crushers
Lie on a bench, take an EZ bar or two dumbbells, and lower the weight towards your forehead or just behind it with your upper arms angled back a few degrees. That backward angle is what keeps some stretch on the long head. Extending to a dead lockout every rep is optional and hard on the elbows for a lot of people; stopping just short keeps tension where you want it.
Elbow pain is the usual complaint. Switching from a straight bar to an EZ bar or dumbbells solves it for most people, since the neutral or angled wrist takes the strain off. See skull crushers for the full breakdown.
3. Close grip bench press
Your heaviest triceps exercise, and the one that lets you progress in 2.5kg jumps for months. Grip the bar roughly shoulder-width, tuck your elbows to around 45 degrees, and press. Going narrower than shoulder-width doesn't recruit more triceps; it just annoys your wrists.
Because you can load it heavily, the close grip bench press builds the strength that carries into everything else you press. Details in our close grip bench press guide.
4. Dips
Bodyweight, brutal, and free. Keep your torso close to vertical to bias the triceps rather than the chest, lower until your upper arms reach roughly parallel with the floor, then press back up without locking out aggressively. Once 12 clean reps feel easy, hang a weight from a dip belt.
If you can't yet do a full dip, bench dips or an assisted variation on parallel bars will get you there. A dip station is one of the cheapest bits of kit that meaningfully expands what you can train at home. Full technique in our dips guide and tricep dips guide.
5. Cable pushdown
The classic finisher, and it earns its place for the lateral head and for sheer volume tolerance. Use a rope or a straight bar, pin your elbows to your sides, and push down until your arms are straight. Let the weight come up until your forearms pass parallel before reversing.
The mistake almost everyone makes is turning it into a half-rep chest press by leaning over the bar. Stand up straight, use less weight, control the top. See tricep pushdown.
6. Diamond push-up
Hands under your chest with index fingers and thumbs almost touching, body in a straight line, elbows brushing your ribs on the way down. It's the best triceps exercise that needs no equipment, and it scales by elevating your feet or slowing the descent to four seconds.
Wrist discomfort is common in this position. Doing them on dumbbell handles or push-up bars fixes it. Our push-ups guide covers the pattern more broadly.
7. Tricep kickback
Long dismissed as a waste of time, and mostly rehabilitated since. The kickback puts peak tension at full elbow extension, which is where cables and dumbbells usually give you the least resistance. Hinge forward, upper arm parallel to the floor and locked in place, then straighten the elbow and hold for a beat.
Light weight is the point. If you're swinging 15kg, you're rowing, not extending.
8. Lying dumbbell extension behind the head
Similar to a skull crusher, but you take the dumbbells past your forehead and down towards the floor behind you, which lengthens the long head further. One EMG study comparing overhead and lying dumbbell extensions found similar activation patterns between the two, so there's no need to run both in the same session. Pick whichever your elbows prefer.
Programming: what a week looks like
Six to ten hard sets a week grows triceps for most people, spread over two sessions. That total includes the work they get from bench pressing and overhead pressing, so you don't need mountains of direct arm work.
- Session A: overhead cable extension, 3 sets of 10 to 12. Close grip bench press, 3 sets of 6 to 8.
- Session B: dips, 3 sets to two reps short of failure. Rope pushdown, 2 sets of 12 to 15.
Add reps before you add weight, then add weight and drop back to the bottom of the range. The NHS advises strengthening work covering every major muscle group on at least two days a week, and this fits neatly inside that.
Common mistakes
Living on pushdowns. They're comfortable and you can do them forever without ever loading the long head in a stretch. One overhead movement fixes it.
Chasing elbow lockout with heavy weight. Locking out hard under load is where elbow pain starts. Stop a hair short and squeeze instead.
Flaring the elbows. On skull crushers and close grip bench, elbows drifting wide hands the work to your chest and shoulders. Keep them tracking forward.
No progression. Doing 3 sets of 12 with the same 10kg dumbbell for a year is maintenance, not training. Write down your loads. A set of adjustable dumbbells makes small jumps easy at home, and a cable machine opens up the overhead and pushdown work properly.
Ignoring the stretch. Rushing the bottom half of every rep costs you the most productive part of the movement. Slow the lowering phase to two or three seconds and stay there for a moment.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best tricep exercise?
The overhead extension, done with a cable or a dumbbell, has the strongest evidence behind it. A 2022 training study found the overhead position produced roughly 1.5 times more growth in the long head of the triceps than the same movement with the arm hanging by the side, despite lighter weights being used. Pair it with a close grip bench press or dips for heavy loading and you have covered most of what the muscle can do.
How many tricep exercises should I do per session?
Two is usually enough, three if arms are a priority. Pick one that stretches the long head overhead and one that lets you press heavy, such as close grip bench or dips. Doing five different pushdown variations in a row adds fatigue rather than stimulus.
Can I build triceps with dumbbells only?
Yes. Overhead dumbbell extensions, dumbbell skull crushers, close grip dumbbell presses and kickbacks cover every function of the muscle. A pair of adjustable dumbbells that reach 20kg or more per hand will keep you progressing for years.
How often should I train triceps?
Twice a week suits most people, which also matches the NHS guidance of strengthening all major muscle groups on at least two days a week. Your triceps already work on every pressing movement, so 6 to 10 direct sets spread across the week is plenty for arm growth without wrecking your bench press.
Why are my triceps not growing?
Three culprits show up again and again: never training the long head in a stretched overhead position, cutting the range short by stopping halfway down on pushdowns, and never adding weight. Track your loads, take at least one set close to failure, and put an overhead movement in every arm session.
Do triceps or biceps make your arms bigger?
Triceps. They make up roughly two thirds of upper arm mass, so a well developed set of triceps changes the look of your arm far more than curls do. That does not mean skipping biceps, but if your arm training time is limited, spend more of it on elbow extension.
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