Exercise Plan - Basic Tricep Extension Workout

Margie Weiss: My name is Margie Weiss and this is a tricep workout. The triceps are the muscles in the back of the arm. Tri meaning three, there are three positions, three muscles that combine to become the tricep. So, in all of the exercises that we do, we can do three different positions. So what we are going to do here is a basic tricep extension. We are going to have shoulders to the floor. If I had headlight on both of my shoulders and my hips, they would all be pointed to the floor. But the elbow is as high as you can get it and that s where you want to pretend like you have got a little pin, so that as you extend you arm backwards and then re-bend it, the weight itself comes in next to the chest. If it ends up coming in a swinging action down here like hi-ho, hi-ho, it s off to work you go, that s wrong. You want to keep that elbow very still, extended and then bend it. The idea here, as I try to tell my clients pretend like you got an orange on your tricep. Squeeze the juice out of the orange and then release it. Notice the muscle exercise. The muscle positioning is slow, smooth and controlled. It s not snap, it s not jerk. This is a joint, we want to safeguard it, so you want to make sure that you come in slowly and you extend slowly. Janice is doing what s called a hammer grip where her palm is facing her body. There are two other positions that we can use. The first of which is, you are going to turn you hand towards your face, so that you can see your fingers. Then when you extend the palm is down. It will feel like you are angling out, just a little bit more just because of your musculature but you still do the same extension and return. Now she can do the third position which is as she gets to the base, she is going to turn her hand a 180 degrees. Now, her fingers are pointed towards the ceiling. So, as she extends fingers are up. This one is a little harder to re-bend and still keep your elbows up. So pretend like you have got that pin holding your elbows still. So it s just the forearm that s working. That way you really isolate the muscles on the triceps. Then she is going to come down. Obviously, you have two arms, so you will do it on the other side as well but we are just going to show you the one arm. You can do those for about 10-15, obviously depending on your weight. If you have got such a heavy weight, that you are heaving and using your shoulder, lighten up the weight, so that you can get the position because it s that s more important to get the position than to it is to carry 500 pounds and not being able to do the exercise.