Chicken wings, hello/goodbye arms… whatever you call them, the muscle that sits at the backs of your arms is often on the target list when it comes to toning up.
Triceps brachii (Latin for three-headed arm muscle) works with your chest muscles (pectorals) whenever you perform a pushing movement. To tone your triceps, you can either do pushing exercises – such as push ups – or isolation exercises to specifically target that area of your body – such as kickbacks.
Here are some exercises to help you tone up those triceps! Do 12-15 reps of each and go back through the set 2-3 times.
Triceps dips
Sit right on the edge of a bench or chair, hands on the edge of the seat by your sides, fingers facing forwards and feet spaced about hip-width apart in front of you. Drop your butt off the edge of the seat, hinging at the elbows until they reach 90 degrees, then squeeze your arms and straighten them back up again to lift your body.
If these are too difficult, take a seat on the ground, position your fingers forward by the sides of your butt as if you were on the edge of the chair as in the ‘full’ triceps dips, then brace your core and allow yourself to drop backwards from the hips, using your arms to push back up (straighten them out).
Push ups
Push ups are great as they also use your core muscles. If you have no injuries, start off on your toes and drop down to your knees when you need to – even if you can only do half a rep, it’s better than none and they do come with practice!
To make your push ups really get into your triceps, you can take your hands directly under your shoulders and keep your elbows in close to your ribcage as you do the push up.
Triceps kickbacks
Stand in front of a bench or chair, bent over with one hand resting on it, the other hand holding a weight plate or dumbell. With the weighted arm positioned along your side, elbow locked by your ribcage, straighten your arm to ‘kick back’ the weight just behind you, then relax it back down. Don’t forget to repeat on the other side!
Overhead triceps press
Standing up, hold a weight plate or dumbell with both hands, arms fully extended above your head. Keeping your elbows locked as close to your head as possible (they have a tendency to want to drift outwards with these!), hinge from the elbows to let the weight come behind your head, then straight it up to the ceiling again.
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