For years, my exercise of choice for triceps working out was the pulley pull, just because I saw someone doing it at the gym. And not only the athletes had big arms, but also I could swear they knew nothing better.

Fortunately, I realized how important it is to workout triceps not only in the hard way, but also in the smart way. Even though any exercise can tire your triceps, it is better to do some of them at the beginning of your training and others at the end.
In order to promote the maximum overcharge on the muscle, you should choose exercises in which you can use the highest weight at the beginning of the training. You should also use different positions for your arms, for instance, raising them above your head to workout the long head of triceps. It works because, to fully contract a muscle, you have to stretch it first.
Finally, by changing your hands position you also use fibres differently. Instead of doing all the exercises with prone grip, start using supine and neutral grips.

Despite pulls are excellent for those grip variations, they are no longer the base for my routine; now I use them as the final move in just a couple of my trainings.

They workout triceps at full blast, and that’s it.
Success doesn’t comprise using only the proper exercises; it is also based on the ideal weight. I can do half repetitions of bench press with closed grip, and promote a new development. Sometimes I use heavy weights demanding the 100% out of me. After 2 or 3 series of warming up using increasingly-high weights, I chose a load which allows me do 6 repetitions until fail. If I’m with a training mate, I add two forced repetitions. I also rest more in my heavy series to get a better recovering. The last series are the lightest ones but with more repetitions.

This is the model I use for each exercise in my routine. Training this way, worked-out muscle gets more and more exhausted and that’s why I put the heaviest series at the beginning of each exercise. So, I start with bench press with closed grip, and I avoid wasting my energies in light series taken to fail, increasing the weight in the next series as tiredness. After warming up, I go straight to the heaviest series instead of going through a pyramid system.
At the end of my routine, I don’t think about moves with few repetitions, but in muscular congestion. Take each series to total fail, in that point you should use rather light weights. That’s when I do the pulls or inverted grip pulls.

All of this entails a useful well designed program, which will work for a while. Then you can change the exercises to avoid the lack of progress, but I rather take turns between two different triceps’ trainings performed with 4 to 7 days from each other. That’s why I give you a couple of triceps’ routines designed to be swapped. The first one is based on strength, using heavier weights; the second is lighter and it’s only performed using pulleys.
Now you’ve got it. You no longer need to be in the lines of the athletes who only do pulls with pulleys and have no big arms.

EXERCISES

BENCH PRESS WITH CLOSSED GRIP IN MULTIPOWER
It’s one of the few compounded exercises for triceps, and you can use lot of weight. By using multipower you forget about balance, you just need to focus in crunching your triceps until reaching the muscular fail.
BEGINNING: Put a flat bench in a multipower, grasp a bar with extended arms in order to get to the lower part of the chest when you reach the final position, hands separated 25cm approximately from each other; getting them closer does not mean extra work for triceps. From there you have to release the weight.
EXECUTION: Keeping elbows next to the sides while you control the weight lowering, you’ll stop before the bar touches your chest. Then you have to strongly lift it to the final position.
TRAINING NOTES: Don’t be afraid of using heavy weights, regarding it’s the first exercise of your routine. After warming up do a couple of series that allow you to make 8 repetitions.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUE: Accept a gym mate’s help so you can do a couple of forced repetitions in the heaviest series.

EXTENSION WITH Z BAR AVOBE HEAD, SITTING
Put your arms next to your ears to stretch the long head of the triceps, allowing it a stronger contraction. Most people do this in a machine, which is similar. However, free weight move are more complete.
BEGINNING: Put a Z bar loaded with weight behind a bench with backrest. Despite you can grab the bar yourself, it’s better someone gives it to you. Sit on the bench, as shown in the picture; grab the bar with prone grip, and your hands a little bit closer than your shoulders width, and put it right away above your head.
EXECUTION: It’s hard to keep your arms in place when you perform the move. Lower the bar behind your head, feeling how triceps stretch. In the final position, elbows should point up. In a controlled way, go back until extending your arms.
TRAINING NOTES: This exercise is usually done using a dumbbell, but the closed grip forces the elbows to separate, reducing the tension on the triceps. Use a wider grip with the Z bar.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUE: Many of us got a bump in the head when our arms got exhausted. Ask a gym mate to help you out, which will allow you make more forced repetitions as he takes the weight out.

TRICEPS EXTENTIONS WITH PULLEY, LYING DOWN
Everybody has done this exercise with pulley, but now we are about to use it to slightly change the pulling angle. Instead of “resting” when your arms are up, you have to struggle with the bar in the final position because the pulley resistance comes from behind your head.
BEGINNING: Put a flat bench about 30cm apart from the base of a low pulley. Attach the pulley to a Z bar and lay down facing up on the bench to grab the Z bar with prone grip, moving your arms until they are perpendicular to the body.
EXECUTION: Think of your elbows as axis: arms will remain fixed, and the move will be on the elbows. Let the bar slowly move toward the top of your head, and strongly move it back to the starting point.
TRAINING NOTES: Don’t let your elbows to separate when you do the repetitions.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUE: Make some changes to keep tension and interest: probe the sloped bench or use a rope instead the pulley.

CABLE KICKBACK
Lots of people do kicks with fee weights, but it’s seems better to me to give some impulse. This version, it’s probably better than those with free weights, providing it doesn’t let you rest in any point of the move.
BEGINNING: Standing 60cm away from a low pulley. Align your shoulder to be exercised with the pulley. Put the opposite foot ahead and the forearm on your thigh. Keep your head up and your lower back flat. Use a neutral grip.
EXECUTION: Think of your elbow as an axis; your arm should be aside. Carefully pull your hand backwards until it is aligned with the back. Let the weight go back to the starting point, and once you finish the series with one arm change to the other keeping the same position.
TRAINING NOTES: If you use excessive weights, you won’t be able to fully extend your arm, educing tension on the long head.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUE: Do descendant series –cut down weight a 20% at the point of reaching muscular fail- in your last two series.

TRICEPS IN PARALELL MACHINE
Sit down upright and fasten your seatbelt not to lift yourself from the bench. Pull the handles until you fully extend your arms, holding that position for a second. Fight the negative back when turning to the starting point, keeping elbows close to your body.

Pulley pulls
This is a common triceps exercise that doesn’t allow excessive weights; here at the training end. Block your elbows aside, and let the weight pull your forearms until the lay perpendicular to your body, and then use triceps to lower the weight until full arms extension. Grip is at your wish, but hands must be separated almost at shoulders width to avoid elbows separate from your body.

ABOVE HEAD EXTENSION WEITH ROPE
Standing with a high pulley with a rope attached at your back. Give a big step forward and bend about 60 degrees. Put your arms at your ears height and keep them there for the whole move. Extend your arms above your head and squeeze triceps for one second in the max contraction position before you go back to the starting point.

PULLEY PULLS WITH INVERTED GRIP
For this unilateral exercise, stand aside a high pulley with a D handle attached so it. With the most distant hand grab the handle with supine grip and stick your elbow to your side. Contract triceps to extend your arm and tighten at full blast in the final position.
Let the weight slowly return to the starting point, without trespassing the parallel line to the floor. Keep your wrist neutral. Once you completed the series, repeat with other arm.