What's up guys! I'm Michael Kamalu, medical students, here with dr. Gaines MD and I have
my assistant here Dr. bones, and today we're gonna walk through one of the most common mistakes with
tricep lifts. And give you a very simple fix that will allow you to both greatly increase
the amount of progress that you see in your tricep workouts and simultaneously decrease
the chance of you hurting yourself. In those gains without pains. First, let's take a look
at the bad example which is doing what we call "skull crushers" on laying flat on a bench with
your arm extended out straight in front of you. Have my assistant bones here demonstrate what
goes on here. As you can see, with free weights, the resistance is always gravity
right. And gravity has only one direction which is down. So, if gravity is pushing this way down,
then it's going straight from joint, to joint, to joint, to the bench, to ground without
meeting any resistance in any muscles anywhere at the top of this rep which happens to be the
point at which the triceps are most flex. It's that peak contraction. So, with this position,
you are getting absolutely zero resistance at the peak contraction of the workout which is when you
want it the most. Now, the second issue with this position is, as I bring the weight down,
look what happens to this fulcrum, which is the elbow gravity is still smashing down on that
elbow and, as the weight gets further down, these ligaments feel more and more pressure. As you get
down into an acute angle it reaches a point where there's possible tendon rupture, even so because
the gravity is bearing down directly on the top of your elbow, in this position, it is really
bad for the joint. Many of you have probably got done with a set of skull crushers and said
"Man, my elbow's hurt after that!" And if not, then there's also the possibility of a chronic
buildup of muscle injury that you will not realize until things start tearing out of nowhere. So,
we definitely want to avoid all of that and still be able to get the kind of muscle increase that
we're looking for in our triceps. So, what can we do? One strategy is just to lift your arms further
above your head to get a better optimal angle to the resistance. What I mean by that is, instead of
having my arms straight here, I start the rep with it further back. Now, that will bring some success
because, now, you've got gravity going down on muscle beds instead of just on the joints. And so,
you will have increased resistance this way but this technique actually introduces a whole new
set of issues because, check out the shoulder joint, you now have to have your shoulder locked
in an overhead acute position and, for many of us who have had chronic shoulder injuries,
that can be a pretty bad recipe for re-injury and severe pain. Now, I want to give you a way
where you can fix these issues with the tricep skull Crusher's without sacrificing any shoulder
mobility as well. And that is what you see in this next video up here simply doing them on a decline
bench. Now you can modify the amount of decline that suits you best. I suggest you try it out but,
what decline does is, I, unfortunately, I can't do decline with Bones here but just imagine that his
body is coming down at a slant now and his arm would be coming straight out from his body but
because his body is at an angle to the ground, his arm now is not parallel to the resistance,
so instead of having it straight up and down, the weight just gets transferred straight down into
the bench. The arm is now outstretched and you get resistance going straight into the muscle beds,
and what's better, now when I flex that joint, I don't have the same amount of direct tension
caused by gravity that I would if my joint was straight up and down. Now that it's that an angle,
I can disperse the weight across the upper and lower arm relieving a lot of the tension on the
elbow joint. So, from the decline position, I can now do my tricep skull Crusher's and,
you'll notice that the most important part of this rep at the very top which is when you're
getting max contraction of those triceps, you're getting a lot of resistance because gravity is
hammering down on your arm at that point which is exactly what you want. Now I just want to give you
two other tips, more towards form and doing these skull crushers. First, keep your elbows in. A lot
of people have a tendency to get their elbows out as they get their hands back to their face. Now,
that is going to end up bringing a lot of internal rotation muscles and you can actually screw up
your shoulder and all those even more if you do that. So keep your elbows in, nice and tight
and make sure the triceps are the only thing is bringing your arms back up, which leads me to the
second tip and that's to relax your wrists, you want to have your palms always facing the ceiling
with this lift. Now, imagine that I'm lying back on a bench, right? And a lot of people have the
tendency to grip the bar really tight and so, when they bring it up, they flex their forearms
as they come up. A lot of the weight actually ends up being transferred to the forearms,
biceps and other collateral muscles taking away the work from the triceps now we really want
to make the triceps do all the work here. So, in order to keep my hands facing the ceiling,
as I bring my arms up, it forces me to create an extension in my wrist which will completely take
out all of the anterior flexor muscles and make it so that the only thing bringing in my hand forward
at that point are my triceps. It'll isolate them perfectly. Guys if you thought this was helpful,
I'd appreciate you leaving me a comment or a like, hit that subscribe button for more videos, and
share with your friends. If you have any specific questions, find me on Instagram at dr. gains_nd
and I'll be happy to answer your questions and look forward to working with you more!