Last Christmas, my son got me a copy of Lou Schuler and Ian King's latest book on Muscles. It is a large book with some of the best photographs of our muscular system of any book or website I have seen. It offers more explanations of how the muscles work within our body to keep us moving and living a healthy life than any other book I have read. In addition, it combines options for diet and exercises that allows you to change your body if you are committed and genetics is at least somewhat slanted in your favor. You can be pear shaped or apple shaped and learn from these two guys.
More on how I decided to feature the Triceps as the first of "A Muscle of the Month Club" below the fold.
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Readers, we need your help by reading, making comments but we also need a fresh infusion of ideas and diaries. Last week was a slow week here and we had several missing slots and few open diaries for celebrations or commiserations. We need one or two new diarist each week to make this series continuing and creative. New readers can sign up within the diary and declare your preference for a time slot and I'll update the diary.
Now Back to Triceps:
Most of us know where the triceps are...right? For most men who have focused on the other side of their arms all their lives, the triceps are an afterthought. Not so fast. The triceps makes up almost 2/3's of the mass of the upper arm. If men are so determined to have good "guns", then why not spend some time working the triceps rather than a continuous repetition of bicep curls.
At birth, we are all given a genetic code that gives our bodies more of either fast or slow twitch muscle fibers. Slow twitch muscles are for endurance athletes. They are long and lean and include very little fat but often the connective tissue and fascia are not as well developed thus there is little help to make them react quickly but over the long haul, the slow twitch muscles shine. Lance Armstrong would be a great example of slow twitch development.
On the other hand, fast twitch muscles are fast and quick to react but have very little staying power. They react quickly under stress or for a few minutes but can't stay at that speed for too long. Sprinters, jumpers, or athletes that excel at fast paced sports tend to have almost 80% of their muscles as fast twitch. Michael Jordan is a prime example for me since I am a UNC-CH graduate.
Now back to the triceps. The triceps are made up of three (thus the term tri!) separate muscles in the rear of the upper arm.
We have the long head is on the inner rear of your upper arm and originates from the outside edge of the scapula just below the shoulder joint and runs down to the ulna through a tendon in the forearm.
On the outside of the rear upper arm, we have the lateral head. It originates at the rear upper humerus and also goes down to the tendons that connect to the ulna.
Underneath the long head is the medial tricep. It originates about 2/3's of the way up the humerus and also ends at the tendons that connect to the ulna. The medial head is short but thick.
The lateral head and the medial head are only used for elbow extensions. That's all! If your arm is bent at 90 degrees and you extend your arm out in front of you into a straight line, it is the tricep that is mainly responsible for this action. Since the long head is attached to the scapula, it's function is slightly more involved. It supports the shoulders, pecs, and lats for such movements like pullovers, lat pulldowns, and bench presses.
Basically, the triceps pushes away from the body. The long head adds some complexity to the muscle but very little. On most all of us, the triceps are a fast twitch muscle. They have very little staying power for endurance. From an exercise point of view, you want to use full range of exercises that involve the long head and the pecs with bench presses, the lats with pullups/chinups or pulldowns like on a lat machine before isolating the triceps with dips, machine pushdowns, or kickbacks. Why? Because these three heads tire very quickly and you can do more to develop them in other exercises with heavy weights than you can by doing tricep kickbacks every other day.
The best exercise by far for the triceps is the dip. It doesn't have to be a dip on parallel bars. In fact unless your shoulders are in great shape and your body weight is close to goal, this can be a dangerous exercise on the shoulder and the tendons like rotator cuff in the shoulder area. But you can start to train the triceps with other forms of dips that have varying degrees of difficulty.
The simplest is off a chair or fireplace hearth. Just place your hands on the edge of the chair, move your feet out from you just 2-3 feet, slide your butt off the chair as you support your body with your arms (and legs if needed). Keep your butt close to the edge of the chair. If you move too far away from the chair it places more pressure on the shoulders and can cause some discomfort or pain. Now begin to lower your butt until your upper arms are parallel to the floor or chair. Use your legs to push yourself back up to the starting position only if you must. Place most of the focus on the upper arms for movement. As you gain strength over months (not weeks), you begin to move your legs out straight in front of you and work with only your heels hitting the floor. This places all the support on your arms and triceps as you push back up to the start position.
After a few months and if you are close to target weight, you might then move to chair dips where you also place your feet up on another chair. This raises the difficulty one step further. You might start with a foot stool with a height of only 6-8" rather than a 16-20" chair. To add even more strength development to the exercise, you can use a swiss ball as the foot/heel support chair. This really pulls in your abs to the exercise as now you have to maintain stabilty to the development of the triceps.
There are so many exercises that also target the triceps that an entire book's chapter can be dedicated to it. For those that really want to learn more on strength training, I would encourage you to study form and hand locations on every exercise very closely. One example is the bench press. It is known as a chest/pec exercise but if you use a closer grip than shoulder width, it draws much more heavily on the triceps. Without strong fast twitch triceps, you will never reach full potential on the bench press. Another example is the pushup. Move your hands closer than shoulder with apart-maybe 6-8"'s apart and the pushup becomes much more difficult. Why? Because if you keep your elbows in close to your body as you should on all pushups, you are using less pecs and more triceps. Where you may be able to do 10 regular stance pushups, you might be able to do 4-6 tricep dependent pushups.
Now with a diary series that probably involves 60-70% females, why would I begin this series with triceps? What's in it for the women? Women genetically have a higher fat % than men. As women age, gravity takes over (as it does for men around the waist) and the back of the arms begin to loosen up and droop. Unless, you work the triceps there is no toning, definition, or strength at all in this area. Why does this matter?
As we get older, we often get less stable. For various reasons, we tend to fall more often. If you are on the floor after a fall, how do you get up? Especially if there is no chair or table close by. You have to use your arms and push away from the floor with your triceps. For many who are not aware of how weak the triceps can become, you are now trapped on the floor.
My mom, who is 83, recently fell for the 4th time in the last 3 years. After one fall, she had to have complete shoulder replacement where they reversed the ball and socket to gain lifting advantages. In her most recent fall about a month ago, she had to call someone to come to the home and help her off the floor. She did not have the strength to push herself up.
Many women avoid strength training because they don't want to be viewed as muscular. Simply put... it won't happen unless you feed yourself steroids or your testosterone levels are way out of kilter. Most women can get some definition in the tricep muscle but it takes time. You also would have to have your fat% down in the upper teens or very low 20's before you would see the definition. But you can develop the strength needed to push yourself off the floor some day.
Most everyone looks at the opposite sex and immediately admires some portion of the body. Admit it...it always happens. Women look at a man's chest, his arms, or his butt...OK maybe his smile is somewhere on the list. Men most often look at total package, the butt, breast size, or again down on the list is the smile. I, however, like to see a female with toned arms. No not muscular but at least some definition between the shoulders and forearms. Look at Michelle Obama. She often goes sleeveless to enhance her broad shoulder and her tight upper arms. They are not big by any measure, but I guarantee you she could push Barack away from her if she wanted.
Toning and definition of the upper arms will only come for any of us if we move the needle downward on our weight and fat %. Many here would argue that all they want is to be healthy. I also want that for myself. But if genetics will allow, I also want to stay in very good shape for my wife, my family, and to be able to push myself off the floor some day when I fall. If I continue to focus on the small muscles that have limited tasks as well as doing full body exercises like squats, deadlifts, pushups, pullups, and core exercises, I may some day succeed.
Have a great week!