3 Simple Tips for Triceps to Force Muscle Growth

These are 3 simple tips from John Meadows to force muscle growth on your triceps.

These tips were shared by no other than John Meadows, “The Mountain Dog”,  a professional bodybuilder, trainer and nutritionist who died in 2021. He is famous for sharing gym tips, and workouts and showing how he trained to achieve his goals.

Previously, BOXROX covered John Meadows explaining his top 7 tricep exercises to build massive arms, but this time he is sharing tips that you can use with virtually any tricep movement to force muscle growth.

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Check out below what you can do to improve your arms’ size and strength by utilising his expertise.

3 Simple Tips for Triceps to Force Muscle Growth

1. Elbows

Tricep lying extensions, skull crushers, overhead tricep extensions. Those are fabulous exercises, but they tend to force a lot of exertion from your elbows.

Meadows is a big believer that you won’t get big massive triceps if your elbows are injured. So the simple tip is simply to move the exercises mentioned above to the last part of your training session.

“Those lying extension type of exercises tend to be really hard on your elbow when you start off with them,” Meadows says. “If you just take the lying extensions, skull crushers, the overhead extension, if you just take them to later on in the workout, that alone is going to give you a much better chance of having awesome triceps because your elbows will be healthy.”

2. Long Head of Triceps

The long head of the tricep takes up a big portion of the motion and if you want to grow your arms’ size, you should focus on that.

“If you are going to do four exercises, make 3 or 2 of them for that part of your triceps.” The general point is just to put more emphasis on that long head of the muscle which sits on the inside of your arms, closer to your torso.

Tricep exercises that stretch that part of the muscle are going to be your bread and butter in this case such as lying tricep extension.

Another tip is to choose an exercise where you are getting a far extension on your elbows, such as the rope pushdown, but try to do it with dual rope so that you can extend your arms even further back.

3. Don’t Forget the Medial Head

Meadows likes to think that the medial head is to the triceps what the brachialis is to the biceps, in that it pushes your muscles outwards and simply makes your muscle look bigger without actually targeting the muscle.

One exercise that can target that efficiently is the pin press or an JM press, which is almost like a lying extension exercise.

Check out the entire video below to see Meadows explaining his 3 simple tips for triceps to force muscle growth.

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Triceps

The triceps brachii is its own muscle, and it has three heads (heads refers to the origin and insertion). The lateral head originates at the infraglenoid tubercle of the scapula and inserts on olecranon process of the ulna. It works to extend your arm.

The medial head originates at the posterior surface of humerus and inserts on olecranon process of ulna; it works alongside lateral head when extending your arm.

The long head comes from axillary fossa between coracoid process & first rib (anterior part) & ipsilateral clavicle (posterior part), then inserts distally onto greater tuberosity; this movement functions with both long & medial heads as well as lateral head during extension movements in arms which pull against resistance such as pulling back a bow string or pushing against something heavy like a weight bench or machine at gym for example

Now that you know the muscles of the arms, you can get a better understanding of why each of those movements above were part of Thurston’s best biceps and triceps workout for bigger arms.

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The frequency with which you should train your triceps depends on a number of factors, including your fitness level, training goals, and overall workout routine. As a general guideline, most people benefit from training their triceps 2-3 times per week.

However, it’s important to note that the triceps are often indirectly targeted during other exercises that involve pushing or pressing movements, such as bench presses or shoulder presses. If you’re already incorporating these types of exercises into your workout routine, you may not need to specifically target your triceps as often.

On the other hand, if you’re specifically looking to build bigger, stronger triceps, you may want to consider training them more frequently, such as 3-4 times per week. However, it’s important to give your muscles adequate rest and recovery time between workouts to avoid overtraining and injury.

Ultimately, the best approach is to listen to your body and adjust your training frequency based on how your triceps are responding to your workouts. If you’re experiencing muscle soreness or fatigue, it may be a sign that you need to decrease your training frequency or modify your exercises to prevent overuse injuries.

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