About this workout
The long head of the triceps is the part that gives an arm thickness from the side and from behind. It is also the part most people undertrain, because pushdowns and pressing keep the elbow at the side and the long head never gets loaded in a stretch. This is an eight week specialization block built around overhead and lying extension work: three sessions a week, thirty to forty five minutes each. It is not an arm blast. It is a focused block that pushes tricep volume up and holds everything else steady while it runs.
Who This Program Is For
- Intermediate lifters who have trained consistently for at least a year and can run a full session without a coach standing next to them.
- Anyone whose arms look fine from the front but thin from the side, which usually means the long head is behind the rest of the arm.
- Lifters who want a short, deliberate specialization block between full programs instead of another all-body split.
- People training in a gym with barbells, dumbbells and a cable tower, three days a week they can actually keep.
Who this is NOT for: Beginners. If you have less than a year of consistent lifting, your triceps are not lagging, your whole body is new, and a general program will build more arm than this will. It is also not for anyone chasing a shape. You cannot sculpt one head of a muscle into a peak or an outline. Insertion points and muscle bellies are genetic, and training changes how big a muscle is, not where it attaches. What overhead work does is load the long head at a long muscle length, which is a programming reason, not a shaping promise. And understand the trade: while this block runs, your chest, back and legs are on maintenance. They will hold what you have built. They will not grow much for eight weeks. If you are not willing to accept that, run a balanced program instead.
What You'll Need
- A barbell with plates and a full dumbbell rack, light enough to run clean fifteen rep sets and heavy enough for six rep presses.
- An adjustable bench you can set flat and on a low incline, plus a flat bench or a stable box you can set behind you for bench dips.
- A cable tower with a rope attachment, a straight bar attachment and a single handle, usable at both a high and a low pulley setting.
The Program
Three sessions a week with at least one full day between them. Monday, Wednesday and Friday works, and so does Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Day 1 is overhead volume, Day 2 is heavier elbow-extension pressing, Day 3 is stretch and squeeze work with more unilateral cable time. Every day leads with a movement that puts the elbow overhead or behind the torso, because that is the only position where the long head is loaded long. Each day finishes with a small amount of maintenance work for the biceps or shoulders so the rest of the arm and shoulder does not go backwards. Direct tricep volume comes out to thirty four sets a week. That is a lot, and it is exactly why everything else in your training drops to maintenance while this runs. There is no deload week in this plan; eight weeks is short enough that you do not need one.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead Volume | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Overhead Barbell Tricep Extensions | 4 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Cable Rope Overhead Tricep Extensions | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Skull Crushers (Lying Tricep Extensions) | 2 | 10-12 | 75 sec |
| Tricep Pushdown | 2 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Barbell Curl | 3 | 8-10 | 60 sec |
| Hammer Curls | 2 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Press Strength | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| JM Press | 4 | 6-8 | 120 sec |
| Incline Barbell Tricep Extensions | 3 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Bench Dips | 2 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Reverse Grip Tricep Pushdown | 2 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 2 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Stretch and Squeeze | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| One Arm Seated Overhead Tricep Extension | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Cable Lying Tricep Extensions | 3 | 10-12 | 75 sec |
| Lying Dumbbell Tricep Extension | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Cable One Arm Tricep Extensions | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Curls | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
How to Progress
Four blocks of two weeks. Run them in order, and do not jump ahead because a week felt easy.
Weeks 1 and 2. Find your loads. Work at the bottom number of each listed rep range and stop every set with two or three reps still in the tank. Overhead extensions with a barbell are humbling the first time you load them honestly, so start lighter than your ego wants and write the weights down. Nothing goes to failure yet.
Weeks 3 and 4. Same sets, same rest, more reps. Add a rep at a time until you hit the top number of the listed rep range on every set of a movement. Once you do, add the smallest available jump next session and drop back to the bottom of that range. That is the whole engine of this block; everything else is detail.
Weeks 5 and 6. Add one set to the first movement on Day 1 and on Day 3, so overhead barbell extensions run five sets and one arm seated overhead extensions run four. That takes you to thirty six direct tricep sets a week. Also take fifteen seconds off the rest on the last tricep movement of each day, which puts those pushdowns and one arm cable extensions at thirty seconds. Keep the rep quality. If reps fall apart at the shorter rest, put the fifteen seconds back and keep adding weight instead.
Weeks 7 and 8. Hold the added sets and the shorter rest, and keep chasing the top of every rep range. On the last set of the last tricep movement of each day, and only that set, work to the point where the next rep would break form. That is three hard sets a week taken that far, not nine. Then the block is done and you go back to a balanced program with a stronger long head than you started with.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Five minutes, no more. Two minutes of easy general movement to raise your temperature, then two light sets of the first exercise of the day at a weight you could handle for twenty, moving through the full range and pausing a beat in the stretched position. Elbows want gradual loading more than any other joint on this program, so on the first overhead set of Day 1 and the first JM Press set of Day 2, do not jump from an empty bar straight to your working weight. Take a middle step. That step costs you sixty seconds and saves you a bad week.
Recovery is where this block is won or lost. Your triceps get worked three times a week here, and every pressing set in the rest of your training adds to that. Keep at least one full day between sessions, keep sleep at seven to nine hours, and keep the rest of your training genuinely on maintenance: about two thirds of your normal chest, back and leg volume, and no new maxes. If your elbows ache before you start a session rather than during it, cut a set from the heaviest movement of that day and hold everything else. Progress you cannot recover from is not progress.
Nutrition and Supplementation
Arms grow on a small surplus, not on wishing. Eat roughly two hundred to three hundred calories above maintenance, get about one gram of protein per pound of goal bodyweight, and put most of your carbohydrate around your training sessions. If you are dieting, know what you are asking for: you can hold size and get stronger on tricep work in a deficit, but you will not add much arm. Pick one. Weigh yourself at the same time three mornings a week and adjust off the trend, never off a single number.
Food and training do the actual work here, but a few things make the numbers easier to hit: a protein powder to close the daily protein gap on days when meals run short, creatine monohydrate at five grams a day because it is the most reliably supported size and strength supplement on the shelf, and a daily multivitamin to cover the gaps a training diet tends to leave.
FAQ
Why does overhead work hit the long head harder than pushdowns? The long head is the only one of the three tricep heads that crosses the shoulder joint, so its length changes when your upper arm moves. Put the elbow overhead and that head is already stretched long before the set starts, and it stays under load through a range the other two heads never see. Pushdowns keep the upper arm at your side, which is a fine way to load the lateral and medial heads and a poor way to load the long one. That is a reason to program overhead work, not a claim that you get to choose which part of the muscle grows.
Can I add this on top of the program I am already running? No, and that is the point of calling it a specialization block. Bolt thirty four tricep sets a week onto a full program and you will not recover, and the first thing to go is your pressing. Run this in place of your current arm and pressing volume, drop everything else to about two thirds of what you normally do, and give it the full eight weeks.
My elbows get cranky on overhead extensions. What do I change? Start with the obvious: slow the lowering down, stop short of the point where the bar has to touch your neck, and make sure you are not adding weight faster than your connective tissue can keep up. If it is still irritating, swap the barbell version for the rope version, which lets your wrists and elbows find their own path, and run Cable Rope Overhead Tricep Extensions as your Day 1 lead instead. Lower irritation for most people is not a guarantee for everybody, and nothing here is medical advice or a substitute for seeing a qualified professional about a joint that keeps bothering you.
Questions and results
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