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Most people know the gym is the place to be to build muscle all over your body. But what are some gym machines specifically for bigger tricep muscles?
Compared to other body parts, there are relatively few gym machines for training tricep muscles. One reason for this is that other tricep workout equipment like dumbbells, kettlebells, certain weight plates, and even resistance bands are already such a great option.
Even so, these gym machines offer certain benefits like making sure your triceps do as much of the work as possible. Machines also generally involve a lower injury risk.
That being said, even though your injury risk is likely slightly smaller compared to using free weights, like any exercise, there is always some risk of injury. Implement a good technique to keep your injury risk low. When in doubt talk to an expert.
1. Dip machine
The dip exercise is a typical example of a tricep exercise. The most popular version is done on tricep dip bars with just body weight but there is also a machine that simulates this same exercise with the option to increase the resistance.
This machine is basically a seat with one handle on each side that you can push down instead of pushing your body up. Using the dip machine is relatively straightforward.
You simply adjust the settings for your height and desired weight, take place in the seat, and push down the handles as you would during a regular dip. This movement mainly focuses on your tricep muscles.
A potential advantage of this tricep gym machine is that you have to worry less about balance compared to the regular version of the dip exercise. This allows you to focus more on training your tricep muscle muscles which can result in more and faster tricep muscle gain.
2. Cable machine
The cable machine is a type of gym machine where a steel frame holds weights and pulleys. Thanks to the cable going through these pulleys and attached to these weights you can do many types of strength training exercises for a wide variety of muscles.
One example of a cable tricep exercise is a tricep kickback. To do this exercise you want any grip you can hold with one hand with the pulley at about knee height. Stand with your face toward the cable machine.
Put your feet at about shoulder width, grab the handle with one hand, and lean forward to about a 45-degree angle to a vertical line. Bring back the upper arm of the side with the handle until it is at about a horizontal line. For now, do not exert any force on your lower arm except to grip the handle.
Slowly stretch the arm with the handle. Keep your body and upper arm in the same position throughout the movement. Lastly, lower the forearm again to the previous position in a controlled motion.
3. Tricep extension machine
The tricep extension machine looks similar to the bicep curl machine at first. It has a slanted bench on which you place your arms and there are handles that are connected to resistance.
The difference is that the tricep extension machine will require you to exert effort to stretch your arms instead of adding resistance to curl your arms like the bicep curl machine.
To get a better idea of what this movement and machine looks like, to do a seated tricep extension take the following steps. Adjust the machine settings for your personal needs. Take a seat on the machine and put your upper arms on the dedicated surface.
Grab the handles, your arms will be folding with your hand palms facing toward each other. Slowly stretch your arms as far as you can. Next, let the machine push up your hands again in a controlled motion.
Some machines allow you to load each arm differently. This can help you avoid muscle imbalances by making sure each arm pushes down the same weight.
4. Smith machine
The smith machine looks similar to a squat rack but there are a few differences which make the smith machine more of a machine.
First of all, the barbell is attached to a rail system. This makes it so it can only move up or down alongside these rails and not forward or backward. Secondly, it has a system where you can rack the barbell at any height.
You can do many of the typical barbell tricep exercises like the overhead tricep extension with the smith machine. The smith machine makes it so the movement of your exercise is fixed. In turn, this leads to more focus on your tricep muscles alone and less on other balance muscles.
5. Assisted dip machine
As mentioned before dips are a very popular tricep exercise and for a good reason. They are a great way to work out these muscles on the back of your upper arm.
An issue some people have is that regular bodyweight dips are currently too challenging. An assisted dip machine is a piece of gym equipment that is made to resolve this issue for beginners.
This machine allows you to take place on a platform with an adjustable counterweight that lifts you up. The platform alleviates some of your body weight that would otherwise end up making the dip more challenging.
Besides that, this tricep gym machine is similar to regular dips on dip bars. You can also use these bars at the gym but that counts less as a gym machine.
