Are you after big arms?
 

Big triceps usually means even bigger arms! After all, they account for 66% of the circumference*for this body part. Using compound lifts to trigger maximal levels of growth in your triceps is an intrinsic part of your growth strategy, or at least it should be. The question I want to help answer today is, which compound lift is the best for optimized*tricep growth?

Rather than give one exercise, I am going to provide two - here is why. No tricep routine is complete without some variety of overhead extension because this is how you build the long head, an area many people neglect. Likewise, every workout focused on building big triceps also needs to focus on the medial and outer heads as well.

The two "must use" compound lifts for triceps*in my opinion, are Overhead EZ Bar Skull Crushers and Close Grip Bench Press.

Skull crushers are a great way to isolate the long head which gives a great deal of*size and depth from the side as well as the back of your arms. The awesome thing about this exercise is that you can use a decline, flat or incline angle to change the biomechanical loading on the triceps. Furthermore, the EZ grip reduces stress on the wrists when going heavier in my experience.

For the other two heads of the triceps, the*Close Grip Bench Press*is always going to be a great way to build size. This exercise enables you to build strength, leading to progressive overload, helping stimulate more high threshold motor units.

**Both of these mass building exercises can be made more challenging*by using a pause for 1-2 seconds before the press/extension**