Stop Doing THIS Triceps Exercise (DO THIS INSTEAD!)

It's easy to mess up a popular triceps exercise like the triceps overhead extension or triceps pushaway. In this video, I am going to show you how to perform a popular triceps exercise without any mistakes so that you get the most gains possible. It's like I always say and will continue to say; it's not just what exercise you do that matters, but how you do them that makes the biggest impact. You might have the perfect triceps exercises in your arsenal, but if you are messing them up, they won't do you any good.
It is important to understand the anatomy of the triceps and understanding that there are three heads of the muscle: the long head, medial head, and lateral head. In order to build big triceps, you need to be able to put the muscle heads into peak stretch as well as peak contraction. With the medial and lateral heads, these positions are different than the long head because of the attachment of the long head of the triceps on the shoulder blade. This means that you have to choose complimentary exercises to achieve peak stretch and peak contraction on all three heads of the triceps.
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When it comes to peak contraction on the long head of the triceps, the muscle head responsible for the majority of the size of the upper arm, you need to get elbow fully extended and back behind the body. Exercises that do this include triceps dips and kickbacks. To achieve full stretch on the long head, you need to get the elbow flexed and above your head with your shoulders flexed. Exercises that do this include lying triceps extensions and overhead extensions.
Many people think that they are getting a good stretch on this version of this triceps exercise, however, they are not. Instead, this exercise is better for moving weight and overloading the triceps in the process. That's not to say that this version of the triceps pushaway is completely wrong, but for the purpose of growing the triceps by putting the long head on stretch, we have another option. Instead of anchoring the cable high, as you typically would, what you should do is change the angle of where the cable is and that is to make sure the anchor point is at about waist height.
Once you do this, it's time to get in position. Take a stance with one foot in front of the other, almost in a lunge position, and post your back foot up on the ball of your foot. This will give you a sturdy base and prevent you from being pulled back by the weight of the stack. Often, when loading up the stack and putting ourselves in this position stepping away from the machine, our core is not strong enough to keep us upright against the resistance of the cable. So, by posting up with this back foot position, we are preventing any kind of instability that could be incurred by the exercise.
When it comes to how to do triceps pushaways, it is important to get the elbows back and up in order to get that good stretch on the long head of the triceps. Take note that you won't have to worry about your shoulders going into internal rotation like you would if you were performing an overhead extension with dumbbells. The rope handle attachment prevents any rotation of the shoulders, especially when the elbows are pointing forward.
Too often, when I see someone performing an overhead extension with both hands on the dumbbell, they are internally rotating their shoulders due to the orientation of their hands in order to grab the dumbbell. Internal rotation plus elevation under load is always something that we want to avoid if you want to have healthy shoulders.
Now, take note of the orientation of the cable in relation to the forearms. When the cable (or line of resistance) is perpendicular to the forearms, you are placing maximal tension on the triceps - whether that be in the stretched or contracted position - and this will be the key to how to get big triceps. As you can see, when performing this triceps exercise, the orientation of the cable is more perpendicular than it is parallel which means that there is a greater amount of tension being placed on the triceps which will help to build more muscle.
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Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS served as both the head physical therapist and assistant strength coach for the New York Mets. Jeff earned his Masters of Physical Therapy and Bachelor’s of Physioneurobiology from the College of Health Sciences University of Connecticut Storrs. He is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).