Can we talk about this exercise, please? And maybe even stop doing it, depending upon what the other
exercises you're doing in your program? You see, when it comes to training triceps, there's three
heads that you want to train. The medial lateral and then the long head. And the long head is the
big meaty one that's actually responsible for the most size of your arm. So, you're going to have
to train it. Now, when it comes to the triceps, the function of the medial lateral head is simply
to extend the elbow. So, if you have an extended elbow, you fully contracted those two heads. If
you have a flexed elbow, you fully stretch those two heads. The same can be said for the long head
too, except its attachment is actually unique and it's back here on the shoulder blade. If I want
to fully flex that head of the triceps, it's not just an extended elbow, but it has to also be back
behind the body. Well, what exercises do things like this? Obviously, a Bench Dip, a Tricep Dip,
maybe a Dumbbell Kickback, those are going to fully shorten the tricep long head. To fully
stretch the long head. I don't just need a flexed elbow, but I need this arm to be up overhead,
right opposite of the extension of the shoulder. I got to get in shoulder
flexion. So, we go back to this exercise. Why are you doing it? Because what a lot of people
will do is check the box for saying that, I'm getting a good stretch on my tricep long head here
because my arms are up, but not really. You see, there's nothing really wrong with the exercise if
you want to do it for its sole purpose. And that for me is to load the damn weight up, use a little
bit of momentum, and involve your core so that you can actually overload this medial and lateral
head exercise, because that's all it's doing. It's not doing an effective job on building up the long
head, which again, is responsible for most sides. So, what do you do instead? First of all, change
the angle of where you have the cable. Stop going so high and put it more at about waist level. Take
the rope, get in position and I'm going to step out okay. And I want to get a good solid base.
And this is where people miss a great opportunity with this back foot. You drive yourself into the
ground with a good solid base here, and then you lock yourself in place by driving up into plantar
flexion. I'm going fully up on my toes and I'm not even working here to hold this, this is not
like an active calf extension. I'm actually locking my midfoot in place and using it to
stabilize me into the ground. Because most people would say, oh, it's too hard for me to hold,
especially if I was flat footed. And I agree, your core is not going to hold that. But when
you lock in place here, you're good to go. Now your elbows here are going to stay pointed
straight ahead. And what's nice about this variation of this exercise, rather than,
let's say a dumbbell, is that I'm not getting that internal torsion that happens when you have
a dumbbell in your hands. In other words, with the dumbbell in my hands like this,
I'm getting a rotation component that could be uncomfortable for people in this position
because you get some of that impingement stress. I don't have that. I have my elbows this way out,
so I have a really good, comfortable exercise as far as that goes. But now when I get in position
here, I now, because of the lower angle of the cable, have a good stretch on that long head.
You can feel that you could see it. I didn't have a shoulder that's down here, right, watch the
shoulder angle from here when I'm in here. Where's that shoulder angle? In relation to my torso,
if I were to stand upright, it's not very flexed at all, it's about 90 degrees. That's not enough
to elicit a good strong stretch on the tricep long head. Contrast that to when I come in here and I'm
in this position. Where's that shoulder now? That's adequately stretching that tricep long
head because I'm up here in flexion by another 3040 degrees okay. From here now, this is key,
when I extend, I want to stay as upright as I possibly can. I want to open my chest as I go up,
here. Right. Just like that. Because you want to note the direction of the cable in relation to the
forearm. If I can keep this cable as perpendicular as I possibly can to that forearm, it's going to
be impossible to be completely perpendicular. But if I can get it as perpendicular as I can
by staying up tall, I'm going to put maximum tension on the triceps in this fully extended
position. Contrast that once again with what's happening here. When I go here and I go out,
what's happening? Look at the relationship of that cable and my forearm. They're almost parallel
to each other, there's not a lot of tension when that happens on the working muscle. Now,
when you grab these ropes, I see a lot of people grab them like this. Okay. What that does is it
influences or kind of incentivizes you at the top to kind of let the weight pull yourself
back into what we call radial deviation down that way, never fully extending the elbow.
If instead I grab the ropes underneath like this here, so my hands are facing out when I do the
exercise and I get to the top here, I can fully extend. My wrists are extended, and with that,
neurologically we activate the full extension pattern of the elbow, which means I get fully
locked out. Anybody that ever did any tricep exercise where they didn't really fully lock out
the elbow, never quite felt the full contraction. But when you have it like this, you accessorize
that basic extension of the elbow joint because you're getting an extension of the wrist there,
sort of paired together neurologically. So, if I can get that full extension at the wrist, I'm
going to get an easier extension at the elbow. Finally, when I get in this position here and I'm
up at the top like this, you might question, well, that's really difficult, Jeff. I don't have the
shoulder mobility to get myself up here with that good stretch. Right? Well, yes you do, because if
I were to just pull these down to my shoulders and press up, this is the end position of a Shoulder
Press. I think we all, or most of us have the mobility in our shoulders to do an Overhead
Shoulder Press. I'm not asking for anything that's more than you probably already have.
It's just that you never really felt that level of stretch applied to that exercise, because you've
been doing too much of this for too long. And again, I'm not saying that there's anything
wrong with this, if you're going to do it to really load the weight up and drive a lot of
tension through the triceps, because it's more of a momentum-based exercise. But when you want to
have an impact on the tricep long head, you better get this thing to the position to actually get
your arm up and apply that stretch to be able to get that. And again, complement that with
some of the exercises that put you in that fully contracted or fully shortened position of the long
head to where your arm is back behind your body to fully complement your workout. Far too many
people check the box, tricep long head stretch exercise. No, it's not, pick something better.
If you want to learn how to do a Face Pull properly, because it's another one people
screw up. Make sure you click this video here to watch that. Also, how to properly do a Dumbbell
One Arm Row, you can watch that here guys. All of our complete programs are available at
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you never miss a video when we put one out. All right guys, see you soon.