When it comes to working your triceps the one exercise almost universally included in every workout is the pushdown. The triceps pushdown is an isolation exercise where you feel the triceps contact, leading to great muscle pumps and flex time. Because it can be done with an assortment of pulley attachments, there are countless ways to mix things up when it comes to your pushdown procedure and also countless ways to make these tricep cable pushdown mistakes.
However, even though the triceps pushdown is not a complex exercise, it gets screwed up regularly.
Here, we’ll dive into the proper form for the triceps pushdown, what’s required for good form, and four common mistakes stopping lifters from achieving the horseshoes triceps that 99% of lifters want. Why 99%? Because the other 1% are lying to themselves.
How to Do the Cable Tricep Pushdown
Set the cable at the highest anchor point.
With your body facing the cable, put your feet together and your upper arms by your sides.
Get your chest up, shoulders down, and back flat with your hips angled slightly forward.
Grip your attachment of choice and extend the elbows to push the handles down.
Slowly return your forearms to just above 90 degrees, keeping the elbows in front of the shoulders at all times.
What’s Needed For Good Form
The beauty of the triceps pushdown is that you can isolate the triceps and feel the muscle contract, hopefully getting you a nice pump. Here are some essential form tips for the triceps push-down.
Keeping the elbows slightly forward from the shoulders.
Having a slight forward lean of your torso due to your hips angling forward.
A controlled eccentric contraction.
Keeping your wrists neutral.
Not standing too close to the cable machine.
There is not too much devil in the details, but body position with the triceps push-down is essential.
4 Common Tricep Cable Pushdown Mistakes
Get the best out of this triceps muscle-pumping exercise by NOT making any of these four mistakes.
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martvisionlk
Don’t Stand So Close
It feels good to get all warm and comfy with the cable machine because the closer you are, the more leverage you have to move heavier weights. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help your triceps one little bit. First, it turns the exercise into more of a chest press and takes the focus off the triceps., Second, the cable and your arm are lined up at lockout, which takes the tension off the triceps.
Fix It: Easy fix, lighten the load and ensure you’re around arm’s length away from the cable attachment. Then have your hips angled and a slightly forward torso lean to put more tension on the triceps.
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Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB
Don’t Overload
You can make this argument for all exercises, and you would be right. But when it comes to isolation exercises, this is even more so. Compound exercises make it easier to move heavier weights because multiple muscle groups work together, but isolation exercises are different. With isolation exercises, tension is critical, and if you need momentum to move the weight, then some muscle-building tension is lost.
Fix It: Wouldn’t you know it, another easy fix. Take some load off, and feel the tension in your triceps. No one cares about your one-rep triceps push-down max.
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Stop Shorting Yourself
Using too much weight and shortening the range of motion usually go together. Partial ROM training works, but that’s for compound exercises to improve sticking points. With isolation exercises like the triceps push-down, complete ROM works best. Most of the benefits of this exercise come from full extension, and if you don’t achieve it, then the muscle-building benefits go bye-bye.
Fix It: This is reaching broken record status but bears repeating. Lighten the load and achieve a full range of motion with every rep.
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Nikolas_jkd
What’s The Rush?
When moving 1RM type of weight from A to B, you want it to do it as fast as possible. The longer it takes, the more room for error. But not so with isolation exercises like the triceps push-down. The longer the rep takes, the better because you’ll get more time under tension, which is one of the requirements for muscle growth.
Fix It: During the eccentric contraction, take three to five seconds to get back to the starting position. You be amazed at the burning in your triceps and the flex appeal afterward.
