[Video clip] Dips are by far, without a doubt,
they're unparalleled. They are the best exercise for triceps. [End clip]
Well, now, what am I supposed to do? You might be thinking the same thing, especially if
you're a current tricep workout looks like this. A hefty dose of Tricep Pushdowns, if you've been
watching this channel for any length of time, definitely some Lying Tricep Extensions or any
other tricep exercise that's been shown to be effective that happens to work for you. Well,
maybe it's time to change it up. Especially if you're listening to Mike Mentzer, who is somebody
I actually listened to a lot growing up. See, Mike Mentzer's heavy duty training program was
something I adopted as a young teenager, and it gave me great results because it told me
how to trade in workout length for intensity. That being said, he didn't just stop at triceps.
Mike was a huge believer in the value of the Dip for building your entire upper body, your chest,
your shoulders and your triceps. But is there merit in what Mike is saying for you? Should
you be prioritizing the Dip in your triceps training? Well, I actually have a personal story
that I want to share with you that certainly made me a believer. But before I get to that,
I want to share with you what Mike's original inspiration was that convinced him that this
is such a powerful triceps builder, not to mention for your entire upper body overall.
[Video clip] There were three American gymnasts who worked the parallel bars that possessed pecs,
shoulders and arms, like those of an advanced bodybuilder, literally. Not just, you know,
kind of beginning bodybuilders, but advanced bodybuilders. One of my recent phone clients
happens to be deeply involved in the world of gymnastics, and he knows those three gymnasts.
He told me that people ask them all the time if they lift weights, and they don't. They develop
those big upper bodies doing Dips. [End clip] And so there you have it. But of course, we're not
all Olympic gymnasts. I know, I certainly am not. But I mentioned to you that story that I wanted to
tell you, because that is what actually convinced me about the value of the exercise. You see,
in 2008, I tried to throw a baseball for the New York Mets and quickly realized I'm not a
baseball player either. And what I had to show for it was this MRI report that I had done years
later that encapsulated just how much damage I did to my shoulder by trying to throw that
baseball. I had a 50% tear of my rotator cuff, a complete tear of my labrum and degeneration
of my shoulder that pretty much aged me out to be about 80 years old. Not a good combination
when you're trying to make some gains. Well, that being said, a lot of the pressing
exercises were off the table for me, or at least a lot more difficult. Bench pressing caused me pain,
Overhead Shoulder Presses caused me pain. But the one exercise I was able to maintain that
didn't cause me as much pain, ironically, was the Dip. And I figured maybe I'll have
a lot less exercises in my arsenal, but if I could just have one that did a really good
job of hitting the chest, shoulders and triceps, then I'd be in a good spot. Like
Mike Mentzer said, it's the upper body squat. [Video clip] Think of the Dips is the upper body
Squat. Dips are by far without a doubt, they re unparalleled, they are the best exercise for pecs,
delts and triceps. [End clip] But like others have said, it could
be a pretty not so great exercise, especially if you do have shoulder issues unless you know how
to do it right. And that's where I applied my knowledge as a physical therapist. So,
I did the exercise, but I made sure to do one very important thing, keep my shoulders pulled down.
In other words, on shrug my traps throughout the entire exercise. Because what tends to happen when
you don't do that is as you lower yourself down, you will roll your shoulders forward or almost
throw the humerus into the front anterior capsule, which could cause additional shoulder irritation.
By doing what I'm talking about here, though, that is avoided making it a much safer exercise.
Now, in regard to triceps, though, I also know something about body position. The more forward
I lean during the exercise, the more I'm essentially turning this into a suspended
pushup. I don't want that if it's the tricep development that I'm trying to target here. So,
what I do is the opposite, instead of leaning forward so much, I stay more upright. And by
staying upright, more of the focus is on flexion and extension of the elbow, which
will place more of that load on the triceps. Another little tip I've found helpful is making
sure I get to full extension at the elbow. And one of the things that we know assists in that is by
getting full extension through the wrist too. So, I did that by not focusing on gripping through the
hands because that almost promotes a little bit of wrist flexion. I almost want to feel like I'm
getting extended through the wrist, so I almost use a false grip and push myself through the palm
of my hand into that slight extension at the wrist that actually promotes that good full extension
at the elbow, again, really good contraction on the triceps. Now, as Mike would require, it's not
about even the exercise. If you can't apply the intensity to the exercise, again, trading in all
that volume for the intensity. So, what did I do here? Well, I just set up a nice easy drop set,
and I understand that that's not the super set pre-exhaust set that Mike used to do,
but it still is incredibly effective. So, what I would do is a regular Dip,
and I could do it either with weight or if you can't handle the additional weight, you just
do it in bodyweight. But you do a good 6 to 10 repetitions to failure. And at that point, as soon
as you reach failure, you're not done. You can hang a band over the dip station and at that point
simply perform assisted Dips to allow yourself to not just go to that failure mark, but through
failure where Mike would want you. And at that point you rep out once again. But you still have
one other step that would make Mike really proud, and that is, some negative only repetitions. And
on a dip station, you've got no excuse than to be able to perform them because you simply just
step yourself up to the top and then apply the resistance on only the negative portion of the
exercise. And when you get down to the bottom, you step yourself right back up again and perform
another negative only Dip until you can't really control the speed of the descent on the negative,
at which point, you know, you pretty much toast and you've done exactly what Mike wanted.
But now, of course, dealing with a limited exercise array. I wanted to do more, and I
would often find myself asking the question, is one more set really bad if I did one?
[Video clip] On occasion, I've had a phone client ask, Mike, would it make a difference? Would it
be the mistake to do a second set, you keep making such a big deal about doing one set.
And I respond something to the effect that. Doing a second set is neither necessary nor desirable.
In fact, it would be the biggest mistake you can make. Going from one set to two sets is literally
the biggest mistake you can make. Because going from 1 to 2 audience is not merely a linear
increase of one unit. 1 to 2, it represents a doubling. A 100% increase in the volume of the
exercise. And remember, that's a negative. Even once that represents a negative, because insofar
that you train at all, you make an inroad. Well, some people might say, Well, Mike, if I
do a second set, maybe I'll get a little bit more growth stimulation. But then I point out whatever
little bit extra growth stimulation, you made a doubly deeper recovery ability, so that negates
any greater growth stimulation. [End clip] Well, shit Mike, you just had to go and ruin
everything now, didn't you? Just one set. But I will say this, guys, though I might be
a good listener, I don't always listen to what's being said. I can hear you. I'm just a little bit
stubborn. So, I didn't want to leave out some other things I did enjoy doing for triceps,
namely my Lying Tricep Extension. But remember, I had a pretty serious condition in my shoulder,
and I still do. It's banged up. There's not many rotations left on this tire. I have to
protect them. So just going on a cross-country trip and piling up mile after mile after mile,
essentially just doing more and more exercises and unnecessary sets in the gym isn't going to
be the best long-term approach for me. But what I'm begging you to do is reevaluate
that question for yourself. Bad shoulder or not, should you be doing as many sets as
you're doing right now? Could you benefit from doing less of what you're doing right now? And
by trading in some of that extra volume for more intensity? And I'm saying, yes, you probably can.
But with this shoulder and my situation, I had to kind of cut down on what I was going to do,
so I did do more, but I still did that high intensity. And so, what I opted to do was my
Lying Tricep Extension. If you guys saw my triceps ranked exercises video, I actually
put it at the very top of the list. I think it's a great exercise for stimulating the long head
of the tricep and putting it on that stretch. But I still made some tweaks here too to get that
really effective to and through failure benefit that Mike preached. So, I would do a Lying Tricep
Extension with a heavier weight that would take me to about 6 to 10 repetitions. And again, these
are not easy repetitions, this weight is very challenging. But as soon as I reached failure on
the exercise, I didn't just put the weight down. Instead, I just changed the mechanical effect of
the weight in my hands by shortening the moment arm and bringing my elbows down in front of me and
performing more of a JM Press or a modified French Press here. And again, I know that this is not
Mike's approach here. He would take two exercises with a pre-exhaust exercise first leading into
a more compound exercise. I'm using the same exercise and mechanically changing the effect,
but the end goal is the same. We want to exhaust the muscle and take it further through exhaustion.
So, I do exactly what I just did here. I take it all the way through exhaustion
on that JM Press. But I'm still not done because what I can do is just rep out one final time with
one more mechanical drop set into a Close Grip Bench Press or at least modify because I'm using
an easy bar here. But at this point my triceps are fried and yes, I'm getting a good hefty dose
of extra help from my shoulders and my chest. Remember, these muscles prefer to work together,
so why not allow them to? That was one of Mike's main principles. Do the compound exercise after
you're already fatigued, so you get that extra help that can help you to push through to these
new levels of effort to reach new growth. So then was that it, was I done at that point? Well, yes,
but it didn't mean that that led to my results, because it's not just what you do in the gym
that creates the muscle growth. As a matter of fact, it's what you also do outside of the
gym. Remember I said that Mike would blow your mind three times in this video? I think
this is where it's going to happen because that contribution of what you do outside of the gym is
about ready to get a lot more important. [Video clip] Most bodybuilders today do not
understand that the big picture is comprised essentially of two elements of equal value,
I emphasize the word equal. By equal value, I mean literally 50/50, not 60/40, not 70/30, but 50/50.
The first element, the first 50% of the big picture, obviously. Yes, of course,
is the actual workout. Who would deny that? But just as important, the other 50%,
not one iota less important than the actual workout is the rest period between us. And here's
why. The workout, you must understand, does not actually produce, the word is produce, the workout
does not produce muscular growth. Remember, the workout is merely what? A stimulus. It stimulates
what? The body's growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself that produces the growth,
but only if you leave the body undisturbed by further exercise during a sufficient rest period.
Or you could say it simply, in other words, if you don't rest enough, you don't grow enough,
if at all. [End clip] Well, damn it, Mike. You
just went and did it again. You just upped the recovery ante a lot, especially for me. You see,
I was the guy who still loved to live on five hours of sleep a night. But I knew as my shoulder
was becoming more of an issue, I was going to need to rest more because recovery is so important.
Hearing it from him and hearing him say it, that definitively should be convincing to you. And
again, this is a guy who trained both on steroids and off of steroids. He understood what real
recovery looked like and should look like. And if you don't have proper nutrition, if you don't have
proper sleep patterns, if you don't have proper supplementation to support your efforts in the
gym, you're not going to recover fast enough to make the gains that you're looking to make.
But it does require you, again, to reevaluate what you're actually doing. And are you maybe doing a
little bit too much of that direct work? Though I was training my triceps with a lot less volume, I
still was applying high intensity. And I knew that when I came back and trained chess or when I came
back and trained shoulders, I would be hitting those triceps inadvertently once again. So,
what did I do? I tried to even consider dropping the volume down on my direct tricep work a little
bit in terms of spacing out the frequency of the workouts. So maybe I used to do them once every 6
or 7 days. Well, it might become more like once every 9 or 10 days. And what happened? I didn't
see any change in the size of my triceps, at least in terms of getting smaller.
If anything, they actually got a little bit bigger. And how was I able to achieve that?
Because I did prioritize just as much what I was doing outside of the gym. And I implore
you to start at least giving yourself a better shot at doing the same. Now,
I was lucky when it came to nutrition because I've always been locked in there. I know how
to eat well; I know how to eat to help my body recover. And when it comes to supplementation,
I know that as well. For me, Athlean-RX PRO30G is a premium protein powder that helps me to make
sure I get the amount of protein that I need every single day to maximize muscle recovery
in between my heart training workouts. It happens to not only be one of the highest
quality proteins on the market, but it comes at a very cost-effective price when compared
to other protein supplements. You can find it over at Athlean-RX.com. In the meantime, I hope
you found the video helpful. If you're looking for other videos about Mike Mentzer and his influences
on me and my training, that could apply to you as well, then by all means let me know in the
comments below and I'll do my best to do that for you. If you haven't done so, make sure you
click Subscribe and turn on your Notifications, so you never miss a video when we put one out.
If you haven't seen my video on biceps and how Mike Mentzer inspired me there, you're going to
want to make sure you check out this video also. It's a good one. All right, guys, see you soon.