ATHLEAN-X™

The ab rollout wheel is an incredibly useful tool to help build strong abdominal muscles, IF you perform the exercise correctly! In this video, I am going to show you the 5 biggest mistakes that people perform when doing ab rollouts and what you can do to fix them. By making these small tweaks, you’ll be fixing those mistakes that you might not have even known you were making.The first mistake that we need to address when using an ab roller is the positioning of the arms; more specifically, the elbows. Without even realizing it, we often bend our elbows when performing the ab rollout - a compensation that our body is making without us even realizing that it’s happening. By not having straight arms, we take a good portion of the load (all of which is supposed to be directed to the abdominal muscles) and offload that tension to the triceps. This compensation makes the exercise a heck of a lot easier to perform than if you were to keep your arms locked out through each repetition. Keep your arms straight to make sure that you are getting the full benefits of this exercise.Speaking of arms, the second ab rollout mistake is using your arms to pull the ab roller back in instead of using the abs. It is not uncommon to see someone pull the ab rollout wheel at least half way using their arms before engaging their core to finish the rep. Remember, it’s called an ab rollout, not an arm rollout! Make sure that each repetition has the abs engaged throughout the movement and leave the arms out of it. They are simply there to hold on to the wheel.The third ab rollout mistake that you commonly see being performed has to do with the hips. This might be one of the biggest issues I’ve seen with this exercise being performed and it is flexing them after they’ve been set. Typically, this mistake rears its ugly head in the form of the butt breaking past the imaginary line that is formed at the knees. Imagine that there is a wall that is going straight up from your knees and it is there to block your rear end from crossing that plane. This will make the exercise more difficult, but it is the proper way to perform it. Just because there is an easier way to perform the exercise, doesn’t mean you are getting the full benefits from it!Next, we have the issue of the pelvis dropping into anterior pelvic tilt throughout the exercise (especially when we roll all the way out). The problem with this is the amount of strain on the lumbar spine. The way to fix this mistake when using the ab roller wheel is to keep in mind that the pelvis should be at least neutral to a posterior pelvic tilt. By making sure to keep the pelvis out of anterior tilt throughout the repetition, you are also making sure that the abs are taking the brunt of the work performed in the exercise. You will also notice that any low back pain that you were having when doing this exercise, will disappear.Lastly, the 5th ab rollout mistake is always rolling straight forward. While we know the abdominals work in the sagittal plane, we mustn’t forget that another function of the core is to counter rotation of the trunk. In order to train this movement pattern, rolling the ab wheel straight out is not going to cut it; you will have to roll out at angles outside of center. Now, this doesn’t mean taking a drastic angle to each side, because that will shorten the distance that needs to be traveled by a significant amount - this makes the exercise easier and less effective. So make sure to add in some slight outward angles the next time you perform the ab wheel rollout.By keeping these 5 ab rollout mistakes in mind, you will be able to get the most out of the exercise. As I have said previously, the ab rollout wheel is one of my favorite pieces of equipment when it comes to training my abs and I believe t

If you have poor posture, you are likely aware of it and looking for a quick, easy fix. In this video, I am going to show you one simple stretch that you can do to help undo that ugly, slumped posture. Doing this stretch everyday, I guarantee that you will notice an immediate change in your posture that will have you standing upright and feeling better overall.When it comes to addressing posture, our common thought process is to attack the weak muscles in our upper back and the tight muscles in our chest. However, we often overlook our lats, which when tight, pull our shoulders down and forward. Throughout the day as we work and night as we sleep, we don’t often bring our arms overhead (which would create stretch on the lats.) Instead, we opt to have our arms down and tight by our sides. Thus, we need to address this tightness with an effective and efficient stretch that can be done every day.Before getting into the stretch for the lats, it’s important to take a look at the anatomy of the lats to understand how to properly stretch them. The attachments of the lats are the spinous processes of the T7 to L5 vertebrae, the iliac crest of the pelvis, the inferior border of the scapula, and the humerus. As I will mention later, to stretch the lats in the best way possible, we need to get the upper attachments of the lats further from the lower attachments.Next, I want you to try a quick test; raise your arm straight overhead, one at a time. See how far up it goes (without forcing it.) I bet you will notice that its not very far and that is indicative of what your posture looks like. We’ll come back to this after the stretch.Now, bend your arm and raise your elbow up, bracing it against a door frame. Then, drop your leg (on the same side) back behind your other leg while dropping the pelvis. Next, to bring the spinal processes further from the upper attachments, rotate your trunk in the direction of the arm that is posted into the door frame. Now that the upper and lower attachments have increased their distance from each other, you can utilize manual soft tissue mobilization by using your free hand to move the stretched lat back and forth. Do this for 30-45 seconds each side.Back to that test I asked you to perform. Again, raise your arm straight up overhead and notice how much further it goes. You will even notice that you are standing more upright than you were prior to this stretch, thanks to mobilization of the lats and a release of the tight upper thoracic region. This simple lat stretch does not take very long and can be done in junction with your other posture fixes that you’re performing every day (such as hanging from a bar or doorframe in the morning.) As I mentioned before, you will notice an immediate difference by taking 60-90 seconds to address a problem that you didn’t even know was causing your poor posture.For a complete program that addresses posture while allowing you to build muscle and burn fat at the same time using science backed and results proven methods, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Starr training like an athlete so that you can start feeling and looking like one in no time at all.For more videos on how to fix posture as well as muscle imbalances and weaknesses, be sure to subscribe to the ATHLEAN-X channel here on YouTube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Nobody wants to waste their time doing exercises that don’t work. That said, even good exercises can become bad ones when they are performed incorrectly. However, certain movements deserve the title of the "worst exercise ever" simply because of their low reward, high risk nature. In this video, I’ll show you 11 of the worst exercises for building muscle and what you can do instead.As a physical therapist and strength coach for professional athletes and celebrities, I have to know where the risks outweigh the rewards. If you know the science of training there are always other ways to get the desired result without jeopardizing the health and safety of your athletes.So, without further adieu here a few of the 11 worst exercises we cover in the video:1. Chest flies - I've covered before but I can’t say it enough. People swear they feel an amazing stretch on their pecs by doing this exercise. They also claim that the adduction at the end of the movement gives them an incredible contraction. Both of these are actually exaggerated as the resistance of adduction is absent at the top of the movement and the stretch being felt is actually more on a secondary muscle than it is on the pec. Floor flys and standing crossovers are much better options for reasons explained in the video.2. The Behind the neck press - The problem with this exercise is that it is just plain bad for your shoulders. It places the glenohumeral joint in an awkward position for pressing, which can lead to impingement. Pressing from the natural scapular plane is much more natural and will allow you to press more weight overhead in the long run, leading to bigger shoulders.3. Upright Rows - I’ve gone on extensively about the problem with this exercise. It is possible one of the worst things you can do due to the position of the elbows and hands at the end of the movement. The exercise puts your shoulders into a provocative position for testing impingement. Instead, you want your elbows below your hands (as in the high pull) to still get the benefits of the abduction of the shoulders without the internal rotation.4. Concentration Curls - You may be wondering how this ended up in the graveyard. Sure the concentration curl isn’t dangerous but it surely isn’t the best tool for job. To understand why, we need to look closer at the movement. Pushing the elbow into the thigh while curling the weight up is only using leverage to get the weight to the top rather than pure muscular force. Normally, leverage is not a bad thing but when you are doing it in close proximity to the muscles that you are trying to work (and with a muscle group that is often overactive during the curl in the first place) you are taking away from the effectiveness of the movement. For a more effective biceps builder you should look to the standard barbell curl. People ask “how did you get such big biceps?’ The answer is right here, by doing effective exercises like the barbell curl and by avoiding things like concentration curls!5. Leg Extensions - This is a no brainer for me. This open chain leg exercise lacks any true function when compared to the numerous closed chain options you can be doing instead. Throw in the compressive stresses on the kneecap and lack of hamstring co-contraction, and you've got a recipe for disaster.These are just a few of the worst exercises covered in this video. Make sure to watch the whole thing to see how things like the popular rack pull above the knee, cuban press and even the tried and true dumbbell side bend earned the title of something you should avoid. As always, I’m putting the science back in strength to show you not just why these should get nixed from your workout but which exercises should take their place.

Do you have a flabby chest or a lower chest that sags and you hate looking at it? In this video, I’m going to show you a simple and straight forward four step plan to getting your pecs to be more muscular and look better than ever, without the B.S. The key is going to be to make sure you don’t skip any part of this since it will all lead to a combined best result when you do.This means, we have to start with fixing your posture. That’s right. Posture can be one of the main contributors to a saggy chest. The problem is actually two-fold. First, just slumping your shoulders forward will instantly give your chest the appearance of being a lot smaller and saggier than it actually is. This often comes from having a tight pec minor and weakened upper back muscles. Do the pec minor stretch shown and foam roll your upper back to get more thoracic extension while not forgetting to work on your weak muscles with the corrective exercises shown.Next, we have to talk about nutrition. Far too often, the chest looks much worse than it should because of the amount of body fat that you’re carrying. You can do a simple test to determine how much of your problem is coming from having too much fat versus simply having underdeveloped chest muscles. Look in the mirror and see if you can see your upper two abs. If you are unable to do so then you are likely to have at least 15 percent body fat and this is going to be a problem since men often times will accumulate a good portion of fat on their lower chests when their overall levels get too high.The simplest way to fix this problem is to start eating better. The key is consistency however and randomly approaching your nutrition plan is going to leave you frustrated over the long term. Instead, try adopting the plate division method I show you in this video. It makes eating any meal a lot easier when you can just visualize the plate in this way and partition the macronutrients of proteins, fibrous carbs, starchy carbs and healthy fats accordingly. You will likely find this much less frustrating and easy to stick to long term.For a list of all of these macronutrient suggestions in one place you can visit http://athleanx.com/carbs and see my favorite choices in each of these categories.Last but not least we have to address the training side of the equation. There are actually chest exercises that do a better job than others at hitting the lower chest and helping to get rid of that saggy or flabby appearance. These are all going to have in common the direction of movement of the upper arms. In general, to hit the lower chest fibers in the abdominal head of the pecs the best you need to take your arm from a high and away position to a low and in position. You’ll see that all of the ones shown here do just that.Additionally, applying tension and pausing in the stretch position on every one of the reps you do in any of these exercises will help the chest muscle to undergo a more effective stimulus for change. Don’t skip this part or rush through it if you want to see the best results for your saggy lower chest.To put it all together, I would recommend the following:- Perform the foam rolling for the thoracic spine and the pec minor stretch each time you do your chest fixing routine.- Choose one of the three exercises (face pulls, band pull aparts, tubing external rotation) and perform 3 sets of 12 high quality reps as a neuroactivator of the pecs prior to your training.- Choose 4-5 chest exercises shown and perform 3 sets of each if you are going to perform this as a dedicated chest only workout worked into your current training schedule. If doing this as accessory work to your current total body training split, I would recommend dropping this to just 2-3 exe

There are muscle gaining mistakes that can affect anyone of any age that lifts weights, and then there are those that are even worse when you get to be 40 years old. In this video, I’m going to show you the 8 biggest muscle building mistakes that you can make and how they are amplified when you get to be a little older.The first is the warmup. This one is tricky since many people forget to warmup at all when they are getting ready to lift weights. On the other hand, those that turn their warmups into workouts themselves are doing far too much and it’s actually holding back the progress they should see on their workouts. Four sets working up to your working weight on compound exercises and 2 sets working up to your working weight on single joint exercises is a good recommendation of what is needed. A general total body core temperature raiser like jump rope or a bike is also important for overall prep.When it comes to the actual training you can never forget to prioritize strength training. It doesn’t matter what age your are, training for strength via progressive overload on the big lifts should always be the base of your training pyramid. The issue comes when the pursuit of that strength comes at the expense of responsible training. This means that chasing numbers at the expense of your joints and muscle health is a big mistake. Ensure that you own the weight you’re lifting by incorporating paused lifts at every opportunity.Not including enough of a focus on developing your mind muscle connection (and maintaining it as you age) is the next big workout mistake for men over 40. This is because the ego tends to get in the way and focusing on getting the weights from point A to point Z becomes more important than ensuring that the muscles you were trying to train to get them there are actually doing the job. Since we focus on quality of reps, the way to expand this out to the entire set and the whole workout is to include some metabolic training into your plan. This is actually important for trainees at all levels since metabolic stress is one of the three known drivers of muscle growth (along with eccentric muscle damage and progressive overload) but it is particularly so for men over 40. The reason this works so well is that it doesn’t leave you with the soreness that makes it tough to recover between workouts and the joints are given a break by the lighter weights.Next you cannot forget to do what we preach all the time on this channel, and that is train like an athlete. This not only means taking a scientific interest in the type of training that you do but to actually get out there and include some athletic activities in your workouts. Things like running, jumping and doing agility work are all things that your body will lose if you don’t use them. The old phrase of use it or lose it has never been more true.This also brings about the importance of doing corrective exercises. Things like face pulls and band pull apart may seem like small and unnecessary exercises but they are not. Particularly when you get older, these exercises have a high value and allow you to get more out of the more commonly performed exercises simply by making sure there are no imbalances in place to get in the way.As you can see, there are many things that you must make sure you’re getting right if you want to look your best not just in your 40’s but well past. This is what the ATHLEAN-X Training Systems allow you to do better than any other program out there. If you’re ready to start training like an athlete again and look better than ever before, click the link below and start training with me today.For more videos on how to build muscle at any age and the biggest muscle gaining mistakes to avoid, be sure to click

To perform a picture perfect pullup, there are few things you need to keep in mind. This checklist will lay the foundation for proper pullup form, whether you are working on your first pullup or you’re trying to do even more pullups than you are doing now. In this video, I am going to give you details on the prerequisites. setup, and execution of the pullup, including one all-important caveat that will help to keep your shoulders healthy.Before you even jump up to the bar, there are a few prerequisites that are important to take note of. To start, it is important to strengthen your abs, as they help provide strength and stability throughout the exercise, but also train them while hanging from the bar. Secondly, you should work on strengthening your deadlift as well as you’re working on pulling strength that will transfer to the pullup. You should also note the importance of strong scapulae, as they are key in the execution of a pullup. You can do this by including straight arm pushdowns into your workouts. Finally, the last prerequisite is your bodyweight to strength ratio. Carrying excess weight / body fat will make the pullup incredibly difficult as you are pulling more weight.Next, is the setup of the pullup and that starts with your grip, elbow positioning, and what to do with your legs. The bar should be deep into your grip as to help avoid undo stress on the deep flexor tendons that can cause medial epicondylitis. However, a hook grip can be used sparingly in order to perform as many reps as possible, but is not ideal in the long term. You should be grabbing the bar just outside shoulder width as this will give you the optimal pulling position. Too narrow or too wide can cause the wrong muscles to take the brunt of the work, as well as limiting the number of pullups that you can do. Proper grip width is also related to elbow positioning, as too wide will also take the elbows away from the front of our body and more to the outside, instead of infront of your body (the ideal position). Your legs should be out in front of your body slightly, toes pointing down, quads flexed, glutes squeezed and abs flexed to plug any common energy leaks. When it’s time to execute the movement, make sure to squeeze the bar through the pinky and ring fingers as they are the weakest digits involved in the pullup. Make sure to look up at the bar on your ascent and don’t think of pulling your body off the floor and to the bar; think of pulling the bar to your body! The last point to remember on the execution is to “attack the bar” with your chest. This will open your back into thoracic extension which is important to scapular movement.For that all important caveat in the execution of the pullup, when you reach the bottom of the movement, don’t unpack your shoulders! Dead hang does NOT mean destabilize. Instead of allowing your shoulders to come up to ears when you hang from the bar, keep your shoulder blades down and back. This, in conjunction with thoracic extension (attack the bar with your chest) allows for stable but mobile scapular upward rotation and will help to keep your shoulders healthy.As you can tell, the pullup is not just as simple as grabbing the bar and hoisting yourself up. It’s not just what exercises you do, but how you do them, that matters the most. If want to be able to do more pullups or any other exercises without missing any of the all important details, be sure to click the link below and use the program selector to help find the program that matches your training goals right now. Put the science back in strength and witness your best results ever in the next 90 days.For more videos on pullups as well as other important exercise checklists, make sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube using the link b

To get a wider chest and broader pecs you need not do any crazy exercise. Instead, you need to focus on how you’re doing the chest exercises you’re already doing in your chest workout. In this video, I’m going to show you the best way to perform a bench press, dips, cable crossovers, flyes and pushups to build a wider chest than you are already getting from doing these exercises. The key is to take each through their full range of motion, which is something that isn’t often being done.To start it helps to understand a bit of the anatomy of the pec muscle. We know that there are three heads of the pecs; the upper or clavicular head, middle or sternal head and the lower or abdominal head. Only the first two are separately innervated and therefore responsive to slightly different stimulation from exercises. The sternal head however is only capable of contracting as an all or one unit. There is no such thing as targeting the outer portion of the pecs specifically.That said, you can heavily influence the appearance of the outer pec depending how well developed your chest is overall. In other words, the chest muscle is going to be much broader and overhang your ribcage if you increase the size of it through proper training. Beyond that however, it is going to be most responsive to your growth inducing workouts if you don’t forget to take the chest muscle through it’s full available range of motion on every exercise and apply focused tension in the longest stretch position of the pecs.We can do that very easily on a dip. All too often people perform the dip and cut short the time they spend in the bottom of each rep. It is at the bottom that the pec major is under its most stretch tension. You do not want to short change the benefits of keeping the pec loaded here. Of course, you do this safely by pulling the shoulders back and expanding the ribcage. Never allow your elbows to bend more than 90 degrees at the bottom and don’t weight this unless you have the strength to hold the position.You want to do the same thing on a dumbbell bench press. Instead of just getting to the bottom of the rep and bouncing out of it you want to perform a slight 1-2 second pause on each rep. This will once again not only ensure that a more full range of motion is being applied to the chest but that you are loading the pec muscle in this position and providing a stretch stimulus for growth. From here, you also want to ensure that you initiate the contraction with the pecs instead of letting the shoulders or front delts dominate and take tension off the chest.Next, you can apply these techniques to a pushup. Think about attacking the ground with your chest rather than simply falling to the ground. This way, you’ll apply a greater stretch to the chest and each rep will help with the tension being developed and applied to the very muscle you are trying to grow.Finally, the chest fly is a great option - but only if you don’t perform it on a bench but rather on the floor. As I’ve talked about many times on this channel, performing a bench unsupported version of the fly you are placing a great deal of strain on the anterior capsule of the shoulder when going too low with the arms and also not providing a safety net of sorts to prevent an overextension of the arm. The floor fly prevents this.Take a small half of a foam roller and put it under your back for a few extra inches of stretch on the pecs without risking the same injuries you might incur with the unsupported position of the bench.As you can see, it’s how you do the exercises you do that makes all the difference not just what exercises you do. If you want to see just how much faster you’ll be able to grow a wider chest as well as the rest of your body, be sure to head to t

If you have IT Band Syndrome or pain on the outside of your knee or thigh, then you know how debilitating it can be to your running, biking and lifting. In this video, I’m going to show you a permanent fix for your IT band that is not going to involve a single bit of foam rolling. That’s right. All too often people rush to foam roll their Iliotibial band to treat their pains and all it does is result in more pain than when you started.To get to the bottom of this problem it helps to first understand the anatomy of the IT band. This is not a structure that is going to be able to be influenced by a little, or even a lot, of rolling it on a piece of foam. I don’t care how hard the foam roller you’re using is either. It simply is too resilient and incapable of being influenced by this type of activity.Instead, it helps to understand the muscles that attach and feed into the IT band. In this case, there are two in particular that need your focus. The first is the TFL or tensor fascia latae. This muscle runs vertically down from the top of the pelvis into the IT band and provides a tension or pull upward on the structure, especially when unopposed by the second muscle. That muscle is the gluteus medius. This muscle is one of the most important in your entire body and often times, the weakest.In the case of IT Band Syndrome, the imbalance of pull between these two muscles is what causes the resultant pull and pain you feel along the band or down at the knee. When the glutes are weak they contribute little if any to the balance of the forces on the IT band and the TFL will get reactively even more dominant - just further contributing to a problem that already exists.So what do you do? Well, the first thing as I’ve said is never to foam roll the IT Band. This poor structure is already taking a beating because of the imbalances you placed on it in the first place. Instead of trying to beat it into submission by rolling it, try to take a long term approach to getting to the real root of the problem. That is where the exercises shown in this video come into play.But first, work on the TFL by watching the video I put up on the channel, that is linked at the end of this video. You want to floss the tissues of the TFL using a small structure like a fat grip that I used in that demonstration. Move your hip into flexion and external rotation while downward pressure is being placed on the TFL and not the IT Band. This will work to decrease the overactivity of this muscle and set the stage for the changes you are about to make to the Glute Medius.For the glute medius you want to first test its strength. You can do this by laying down on your side and getting into the position Jesse demonstrates. If you can’t hold this position for 60 seconds without an intense burn developing in your hip then you are too weak and need to strengthen this muscle. You can do this by simply performing repetitions of this movement as shown. If needed, a band can be used for added resistance if you get to the point where your glutes are even strong enough to handle that.The other drill is one that places resistance on the glutes while in different degrees of hip flexion. Remember, the flexion and extension of the hip and knee in a repetitive manner is what most often leads to the onset of IT band issues. When the weakness is present in the glutes, it can cascade into the pain felt down the side of the leg and knee. Do the band resisted seated abductions 10 in each position and you will quickly see a strengthened hip and elimination of your IT Band pain for good.If you are looking for step by step workouts that will build your body into its strongest version yet without pain, be sure to check out the ATHLEAN-X workouts at the link below.

What does Jeff Cavaliere eat in a day? In this video, I’m going to reveal what I eat at every single meal; breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as snacks throughout the day. Many people have wanted to know what to eat to stay ripped and shredded year round without sacrificing hard earned muscle or being too skinny. This will show you exactly what to eat to build muscle and stay lean 365 days a year.It starts with breakfast. Here my staple meal is pumpkin walnut oatmeal. One thing you will see is that I don’t often measure any of the foods I eat. I find this to be too time consuming and likely to turn eating into too much of a process. Once a person becomes even the slightest bit inconvenienced by the process, they opt for an easier (and often times unhealthier mechanism) and the quality of the nutrition suffers greatly.Here however, I show that I have about a cup of uncooked oats in my oatmeal. This equates to about 300 calories. When you add in the maple syrup, pumpkin, walnuts and brown sugar you are looking at about 550 calories for this portion of the breakfast. I get in additional protein however in the form of an egg white soufflé. This is made by putting in about 7-10 egg whites into a microwave safe bowl and cooking them for a little over 2 minutes. Finish with some pickled ginger and salsa and you have an incredibly fast and tasty side dish. I have a glass of skim milk as well which brings this breakfast to about 850 calories.Moving on, for lunch I tend to have a grilled chicken wrap with grilled or sautéed veggies. For this particular wrap it’s zucchini and eggplant. On top, I usually have a combination of hot sauce and pesto (for some additional healthy fats) at a fairly large size wrap, which brings the total to about 550 calories. Throw in a full fat greek yogurt with some whipped cream and the lunch totals just about 755 calories.Dinner usually varies quite often but follows the plate concept that I shared in a previous video on youtube. I like to divide my plate into zones. The two occupying the largest amount of space on the plate are my protein and fibrous carbohydrates or vegetables. The remainder of the plate is filled up with a starchy carb or two. On this particular night I had grilled chicken as my protein with a mango ginger salsa on top. The fibrous carb was corn but could just as easily be asparagus, broccoli, grilled mushrooms, etc. The starchy carbs are a combo of sweet potato mash (with butter and cinnamon) and pasta.I have sparkling water with this (and almost every other meal as well) since it makes hydration more interesting and helps me to ensure I’m getting in enough fluids throughout the day. The total amount of calories here (when included with the tomato chicken orzo soup is around 900 calories or so.I finish the night with dessert. That’s right. I may only eat carrot cake once a year but I have a dish of fat free frozen yogurt with whipped cream every single night. I do tend to stick to the lower calorie variations for dessert since I don’t want to turn this into a mammoth calorie bomb at night before going to bed. I feel this would certainly cost me my leanness.The meals or snacks in between consist of an RX2 X-LR8 protein shake. I don’t show this since I didn’t want to turn this into a commercial for the supplements. While I believe I have the highest quality supplements on the market I don’t want you to feel as if you need to have them to get results eating the way I do. You will. The supplements simply make it easier to stay consistent with getting the high quality nutrition that my muscles need from their hard training.While these are calorie estimates, the most important thing is that you can see that I’m not taking in 1400 calories to stay as lean as

If you have skinny triceps that you want to make wider, especially when viewed from behind, then you are going to want to watch this video. Here, I’m going to show you the best way to widen your triceps and get bigger, thicker arms in the process. Many times people focus on the front of their arms by working on the biceps. While bigger, wider biceps are definitely impressive, this approach is not the best for maximal width as the triceps make up two thirds of the upper arm girth. When triceps width is the goal, you have to look to the back. This video is going to show best triceps exercises to hit both the medial and the long heads. We’ll start with the long head. The long head makes up most mass. When training the long head, people make the mistake of just doing overhead triceps work. This can work but to get maximal stimulation you also have to put the muscle into a fully contracted position. The two best ways to do this are Lying Triceps Extensions and Drag Pushdowns, keeping your elbows back behind body to keep long head fully shortened. If, however, you are short on time and want one effective, simple exercise that can pull double duty, it's this Dumbbell Overhead / Kickback combo. To perform this move, take two dumbbells and perform the overhead extension while making sure to keep elbows in front your body. Upon completion, lean forward and perform a standard kickback. When performing this combo move, be sure to use lighter weight to be able to perform the kickback. Because we are able to use a heavier weight in the overhead extensions, you will have to perform more reps in that position compared to the kickback - approximately 2:1 or 3:1 rep ratio for the extensions to kickbacks. The overhead extension portion of the move provides maximum stretch on the triceps, while the kick back puts the triceps into a fully contracted position. From there we move onto the medial head. The medial head is responsible for stabilizing the elbow while in full extension. Common mistakes here are that most people never fully extend elbow on any triceps exercise and therefore miss out on those last few inches where medial head gets the most activation. Any triceps exercise that extends the elbow, done to full lock out, is going to adequately train the medial head of the triceps. Examples are Pushdowns, Diamond Cutter pushups with full extension, and Thumbs Up Elbow Tucked DB Bench Press. Interestingly and not surprising, powerlifters almost never have under developed medial heads of their triceps because their competitive lifts are judged on full lockout. If they don't hit full lockout, their rep is not counted. As a result, they usually have superb medial head development.If you are looking for a science based step-by-step workout plan that helps you to build muscle by getting the most out of every exercise you do, head to the link below and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. See how training like an athlete and taking your training more seriously can speed up the gains you get and help you keep them for years to come.For more videos on how to build bigger arms or wider triceps, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at the link below and turn on your notifications so you never miss a video when we put one out.Build Muscle in 90 Days - http://athleanx.com/x/my-workoutsSubscribe to this channel here - http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24