Here are the tricep exercises I've experimented with this week:
- Close-Grip Incline Bench (done)
- Close-Grip Flat Bench
- Dips
- Overhead Rope Extension
- Single-Arm Overhead Cable Extension
- Reverse-Grip Pushdown
- Straight-Bar Pushdown
- Rope Pushdown
Before this month, I always struggled with elbow pain whenever attempting tricep exercises. But 2 weeks ago, I discovered "elbow circles" warmup exercise which has thankfully fixed that. But now, every tricep exercise feels extremely awkward in one of two ways:
- It feels impossible to find a tricep exercise with a weight heavy enough to figure out my "6-rep max" (i.e. a weight which I can barely do 6 reps but not 7 even if my life depended on it). The limiting factor is always discomfort rather than the limiting factor being tricep strength (while keeping great form). This is less of a problem if I opt for more reps at lower weight, but I strongly wish to continue the "grease the groove protocol" method which has worked wonders for me the past 3 months and allowed me to move up in strength relatively quickly.
- Even when the exercise feels "okay-ish", I rarely get that feeling of my triceps clearly doing the work. It often feels like my shoulders, elbows, joints, or just general awkwardness are the main thing I'm noticing instead. Despite tons of effort & exertion, I tend to notice that exertion everywhere else but not the triceps.
For someone in my situation, are there 2 or 3 beginner-friendly tricep exercises that feel natural, stable, and easy to progressively overload? I strongly believe that if I choose 1 or 2 tricep exercises to focus on daily (at low weight, low volume, just mastering the movement), that eventually it will feel comfortable and I can eventually grind my way up to higher weights once I practice letting my triceps familiarize with the movement pattern. I just want to skip the guesswork and only pursue the 1-2 most promising candidates.
Lastly, if you were teaching someone how to learn to feel their triceps working on a particular triceps exercise, what cues or form tips would be most helpful or educational?
I would suggest to continue experimenting with dips, especially with a more straight up posture which targets more triceps vs a leaning forward posture which targets more chest.
You can progressive overload forever by adding weight = weighted dips.
As a bonus, they are a great all-around upper body compound exercise.
You can use bands looped under your feet, to a bar overhead to also help get started. This can also help stabilise and make the movement easier.
I would say though, if you've had troubles with elbow pain in the past Dips are going to hit that pretty hard - also shoulders.
Is this still worth looking into if my gym already has an assisted dip/pullup machine? I have to use about 85 pounds of assistance currently for my working sets on the pullups and required even more weight assistance on the dips, which have caused elbow pain in the past (before I discovered elbow-circles warmup exercise).
One of my goals for the next 18 months is to do 1 unassisted pullup and so I've been training with negatives lately, which have skyrocketed my strength. So fast in fact, that I plan to quit doing the assisted pullups and purely do negatives after I focus on a couple other tweaks first.