9 Best Exercise To Grow Your Long Head Triceps Muscle

Don’t get carried away thinking it’s just biceps that make for bigger more defined arms. When it comes to arms, the greatest portion of the upper arm is the triceps.  You might not be able to see them, but the triceps actually make up around two-thirds of your upper arm! So, if you’re looking to fill out those sleeves, with well-developed arms, it’s important to activate your triceps muscle.

Another factoid that many people don’t know is that your triceps are actually made up of three sections, and some of these parts have a bigger impact on the appearance of your arms than others.

The section that lies along the inside of your arm and closest to your body—also known as the “long head”—is the largest part of the triceps, and needs to be the focus of your triceps training if you want to turn your “pipe cleaners into pythons,” as the meatheads like to say.

In this article, you’ll learn the best long head tricep exercises for building bigger, stronger arms. 

1. Overhead Triceps Extension

Overhead triceps extension exercise is best for the long head muscle of your triceps. It helps to develop your triceps muscle, growth, and size. This is the best triceps exercise with a dumbbell that develops your long head tricep muscle especially.

How to do Overhead Triceps Extension?

• Sit on a bench and grab one dumbbell. Grip the top end of the weight with both hands like a form of a diamond.
• Lift the dumbbell until your arms are fully extended up. Grip like your palms facing above the ceiling to dumbbell and elbows pointing forward.
• Bending at the elbows and squeezing your triceps, slowly lower the dumbbell behind your head.
• Slowly return to starting position and repeat.

2. Triceps Kickbacks

By doing perfect or correct exercise, Kickbacks triceps exercise is a very effective and faster building exercise of your lateral head triceps. When you kick the dumbbell back with full force, it generates great pressure on your triceps that you feel by doing exercise.

How to do Triceps Kickbacks?

• Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your palms facing in toward each other, and keep your knees bent slightly.
• Engage your core and maintain a straight spine as you hinge forward at the waist, bringing your torso almost parallel to the floor.
• Above the elbow arm portion, fix and close it your body and your head in line with your spine.
• On a exhale, engage your triceps by straightening your elbows.
• Only move your forearms during the movement. Pause here, then inhale to return the weights to the starting position.

3. Cable Triceps Kickback

1. Set the pulley on a cable machine to the lowest setting and attach a single handle.
2. While still facing the pulley, grab the handle in one hand and take a large step back so that there is tension in the cable.
3. Bend at the hips so your upper body is almost parallel to the ground and tuck your elbow into your side. Slightly bend your knees and stagger your stance if it feels more comfortable.
4. Push the handle straight behind you by straightening your arm, then reverse the movement to return to the starting position.

4. Overhead Cable Extension

An Overhead Cable Extension is the perfect exercise for long head muscle and working through its full range of motion. The denser your long head muscle is, the overall larger the triceps appear. It is the best workout to build the muscles of the triceps.

How to do Overhead Cable Extension?

• Turn back in the front of the cable machine and bend slightly your torso forward, keeping your neck and back straight. Drop one leg back behind another one and create a stable position.
• Grab the cable in both hands, above your head, with your elbows tucked in next to your ears.
• Pull the cable with full extension in front of your head. Keep your elbows tight.
• Allow the cable to retract with control, pulling your arms back to the side of your head. Let your elbows go as far back as your body will allow, so the long head gets a full extension. By doing this, you’ll achieve a full contraction in that long head.

5. Lying Triceps Extension

This exercise is also known as Skullcrushers and is a formidable drill. The lying triceps extension exercise is perfect for building your triceps at an advanced level. It has so many ways to perform it, but your elbow extension remains constant. This exercise is not for beginners.

How to do Lying Triceps Extension?

• Grab an underhand grip on the EZ bar and extend your arms straight up.
• Keeping your elbows tucked in and your arms perpendicular to the floor, slowly lower the bar until it is about an inch from your forehead.
• Slowly extend your arms back to starting position, without locking your elbows.
• Repeat.

6. Close Grip Barbell Bench Press

The close-grip bench press is one of the best tricep exercises for all 3 heads because it allows you to safely and effectively increase your weights over time (which can be difficult with other exercises, like the skull crusher). It also trains your chest, shoulders, and biceps, making it an outstanding all-around upper-body exercise.

1. Lie on a flat bench, pull your shoulder blades together and down, and without lifting your butt or shoulders off the bench, slightly arch your back.
2. Grip the barbell with a shoulder-width grip or slightly narrower and unrack the barbell so it’s directly above your chest.
3. Lower the barbell to your lower chest while keeping your elbows tucked at about a 30-degree angle relative to your torso.
4. When the bar touches your chest, explosively press the bar back to the starting position.

7. JM Press

The JM press is essentially a cross between a close-grip bench press and a barbell skull crusher (triceps extension)—both of which are hallmark strength- and mass-gaining exercises for the triceps.

1. Lie on a flat bench, pull your shoulder blades together and down, and without lifting your butt or shoulders off the bench, slightly arch your back.
2. Grip the barbell with a slightly narrower than shoulder-width grip, and unrack the barbell so it’s directly above your chest.
3. Lower the barbell toward your neck. As you do so, keep your elbows up and in front of your torso, and slightly bend your wrists backward so that your palms face the ceiling.
4. When your forearms and biceps touch, explosively press the bar back to the starting position.

8. Weighted Dips

The triceps dip is one of the most effective exercises for activating the triceps brachii muscle in the back of your upper arm. Additionally, you must activate your core as you hold your hips off the ground.

1. Lift up yourself on the parallel bar with your torso perpendicular to the floor.
2. Maintaining this posture throughout the exercise, bend your keens and cross your ankles.
3. Slowly lower your body until your shoulder joints are below your elbows.
4. Push back to the starting position, but notice that now your elbows are not locked(nearly Straight).

9. Cable Triceps Pushdown

This move of triceps exercise is completely focused on your lateral head and long head muscle, but only if you do it perfectly. For this exercise not use too much weight, by involving weight on your back and shoulder muscles, defeating the purpose. So, lighten the load, heavier the pressure you feel on your triceps.

1. Attach a rope handle to the high pulley of a cable station.
2. Grab the bar with an overhand grip and slightly bends your arms.
3. Tuck your upper arms next to your sides.
4. Push the bar down with your elbows locked and do not move your upper arms.
5. Slowly return to the starting position and repeat it.

Tricep Anatomy

The triceps are located at the back of the humerus, between your elbow and shoulder, and consist of three muscle heads — long, medial and lateral.

Lateral Head

The lateral head of the triceps is found on the outer side of the humerus. This is the horseshoe shape that shows on the upper part of the back of your arm.

Medial Head

The medial head of the triceps is found in the middle of the back portion of the upper arm. Originating from the humerus and finishing at the elbow it lays opposite the long head.

Long Head

The long head of the triceps is the largest part of your triceps and is found running down the back of your arm. The long head is different from the medial and lateral heads, as it crosses the shoulder joint and assists in shoulder extension.

While it’s important to know where each is located on your arm, it’s vital you know how best to target each of the tricep heads. We’re going to focus primarily on the long head, which makes up most of the mass in your triceps.

How to program Triceps Workout?

Programming a workout is based on individual goals – what a person wants to achieve and every gym goer’s come with a different mindset. Some of you want to increase strength or maybe endurance or hypertrophy.

These three keywords have different workout programs such as different exercise sets, number of reps, rest, frequency, and volume. Here below we design different tricep workout plans on the basis of different personal goals:-

Tricep Workout program to increase strength

Strength is defined as the ability of specific groups of muscle that produce max force to overcome resistance within a single exertion.

Note: You need maximum force exertion, so you need to train yourself with as greater a load as possible you can. If the weight load is high in your set, your reps can be low. So don’t goal on your reps, make a goal on weight and increase it gradually to 2.5% to the next session compared to the previous weight.

Tricep Workout program to increase endurance

Endurance is defined as a group of muscles that can generate sub-maximal force over a sustain amount of time or through repeated movements.

Tricep Workout program for muscle hypertrophy

Hypertrophy refers to increasing the size of the muscle, which is done by increasing the overall volume of your workout (sets x reps).

General FAQs

How to Build a Killer Triceps Workout?

1. Close-Grip Bench Press – 5 – 6 Reps, 4 sets.
2. Overhead Triceps Extensions – 10 – 15 reps, 3 – 4 sets.
3. Pushdowns – 10 – 15 reps, 3 – 4 sets.
4. Diamond Push-Ups – 10 reps, set until failure.

How can I strengthen my triceps at home?

Some tricep exercises you can perform at home are as follows: Bench Dip, Standard Push-Up, Diamond Push-Up, Dumbbell Triceps Extension, and more.