Will Partial Reps Give You Those Horseshoes Everyone Else But You Seems to Develop? 20% Increased Gains in 8 Wks

Partial reps for maximal increases in horseshoe (=triceps) size?

Believe it or not: A recent Japanese study suggests that "doing everything right" may be holding you back: doing triceps extensions over the full range of motion seems to be inferior to throwing around the weights over a partial range of motion - the effects may be mediated by temporary hypoxia, but before we delve into an analysis of the mechanisms and the practical relevance of the results, let's first take a look at what exactly Masahiro Goto and his colleagues did with their 44 resistance-trained male subjects (members of a resistance weight training club) before they arrived at the conclusion "that intramuscular hypoxia might facilitate muscular hypertrophy with PRE [partial reps] being more effective than FRE [full reps]" (Goto 2017).

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Goto et al. used a randomized, counterbalanced two-group (PRE and FRE) pre- and post-test design to investigate the effects on muscle strength and cross-sectional area (CSA). The subjects, all of whom had at least one year of resistance training experience, were divided into two groups, the...

• PRE group (n = 22), in which the subjects performed the exercise over the limited elbow range from 45° to 90, and the ...
• FRE group (n = 22), in which the subjects performed the exercise over the full elbow range from 0° to 120°, ...

... each performed only one (identical) exercise at their pre-determined 8-RM for 3 sets, with a minute interval between sets - the classic lying elbow extension (using a bench and a barbell | check it out) with different elbow joint range of motion. Intensity was increased by 2.5 kg on the first day of every week and adjusted to the maximum weight which can be performed 8 times per set (see Table 1).

Table 1: Changes in exercise intensity of 8RM during the 8-week exercise training (Goto 2017).

To compare the acute metabolic and mechanical responses to the PRE with FRE, area under the oxygenated hemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) curve, blood lactate concentration, and RMS of EMG were evaluated during and after PRE or FRE.  After assessing the acute effects, PRE or FRE were performed by each group three times a week for 8 weeks.

Figure 1: Oxygenation (left) and EMG activity (right); Means ± SD (n = 22 for both group) are shown. p < 0.05, significant differences between PRE and FRE values (*) and between before and after 8-week exercise training values (✣ | Goto '17)

All that to compare the long-term effects of PRE with FRE, CSA and muscular strength were evaluated - long-term effects of which you already know that the scientists ascribed them to one of the few statistically significant inter-group difference (lactate levels, not shown in Figure 1, were also slightly higher in the PRE vs. FRE group): the difference in muscle oxygenation (see Figure 1). What you've learned, yet, is that you the results include a highly significant difference in the increase in cross-sectional area of the triceps brachii (CSA) of the 44 young, male study subjects.

Figure 2: When it comes to the actual increase in triceps brachii "size", i.e. the cross-sectional area of the horseshoe-muscle, the authors observed a highly significant difference in favor of the partial rep group (Goto 2017).

With a >20% difference between the 48.7 ± 14.5% the subjects in the PRE group gained and the comparatively small 28.2 ± 10.9% in the FRE group, this difference wasn't just statistically significant, it was - at least that's what I guess - also significantly more pronounced than most of you probably expected the partial rep advantage to be (if you even believed that it may exist).

Full Squat for Full Size Gains, Partial Squat for Full Strength - For lower body, weight-bearing muscle different rules apply | learn more!

Do not falsely assume that the study at hand would prove a general superiority of partial over full reps As the authors point out, we have to assume "that weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing muscles react differently to a particular exercise" (Goto 2016), which may limit the significance of the results of the study at hand to upper extremity muscles. And in fact, as a SuppVersity reader you will remember that squats, i.e. an exercise for the legs and thus a weight bearing muscle group produce the greatest gains in size, when they're done over the full range of motion - and that despite the fact that partials produce identical, if not more pronounced strength gains.

This result does, as Goto et al. point out in the practical implications section of their paper, indicate that using an 8RM load and doing only the middle range of motion during triceps extensions will yield significantly greater size gains (in terms of muscle cross-sectional are) than doing the same exercise over the full range of motion.

Figure 3: The scientists found a significant correlation between the hypoxic effects of the training and the increase in muscle CSA only in the partial rep (PRE), yet not the full rep (FRE) group (Goto 2017)

What will probably intrigue you most, though, is that this form of training could turn out to be particularly useful for those of you who have been training for years, now, because it appears to restore the hypoxic muscle stimulation that's reduced over years of training and increased in response to the (a) higher muscular tension and (b) constant muscle contraction doing triceps extensions only over the partial rep range provides by leading to mechanical capillary compression and thus, consequently, a sign. restriction of blood flow to muscles. With the latter inducing a temporary state of intramuscular hypoxia that appears to blunted in trained athletes (Okamoto 2009), the PRE-advantage observed in the study at hand could/should remind you of the previously discussed advantages of blood flow restriction (BFR).

Bigger Triceps in 8 Weeks of Reduced Oxygen Training  | learn more

So, partial reps it is, right? For the triceps, the answer to this question does indeed seem to be "YES!" Or rather: "Yes, if we're talking about training the non-weight-bearing triceps muscle and, possibly, other upper body muscles." In that, the increased hypoxic stress and the correspondingly increased growth stimulus makes partial reps particularly interesting for trained individuals, for whom it becomes increasingly difficult to provide their body with adequate, novel growth-stimuli without risking to out-train their recovery capacity (overtraining) in their effort to make consistent, measurable and visible gains in both, muscle strength and size.

In view of the fact that using partial reps and thus reversing/compensating the previously alluded to training-induced decrease in exercise-induced temporal muscle hypoxia in was a novel stimulus for the trained participants of the study at hand, future RCTs will have to investigate whether the benefits are a mere result of a slowly but progressively waning novelty effect and will thus be lost after a couple of months of training with partial reps. In addition, it would be nice to investigate the exact difference in volume and total load lifted and its effects on your gains (this was not done in the study at hand). After all, it is quite obvious that the partial rep group will have been able to use higher loads - with a lower range of motion they may eventually have achieved the same volume, but still trained with significantly higher and thus more anabolic loads | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Goto, Masahiro, et al. "Partial range of motion exercise is effective for facilitating muscle hypertrophy and function via sustained intramuscular hypoxia in young trained men." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research (2017).
• Okamoto, Takanobu, Mitsuhiko Masuhara, and Komei Ikuta. "Upper but not lower limb resistance training increases arterial stiffness in humans." European journal of applied physiology 107.2 (2009): 127-134.

EMG Study Can Tell Us Something About Using Dumbbells, Barbells and Machines During Chest & Triceps Workouts

The dumbbell bench press is a pec stretcher. Doesn't it already look like maximal pectoralis major activity?

No, a high EMG activity will not necessarily translate into improved long-term muscle or strength gains, but it can tell you a lot about the biomechanics of different exercises and/or, as in the latest study by de Araújo Farias et al. (2016), exercise equipment and order.

The true purpose of this study by scientists from Brazil and the US was to investigate muscle activation, total repetitions, and training volume for three bench press exercise modes, the smith machine (SMBP), barbell (BBP), and dumbbell (DBP) - all followed by a triceps extension (TE).

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With nineteen trained men as subjects, the scientists had each study participant perform three testing protocols with 4 sets of bench presses (10RM) with dumbbells, barbells or smith machine being the primary exercises that were then followed up with triceps extensions and two minutes of rest.

Figure 1: EMG activity in pectoralis (left) and the anterior deltoids (right | de Araújo Farias. 2016).

Surface electromyographic (SEMG) activity was assessed for the pectoralis major (PM), anterior deltoid (AD), biceps brachii (BB), and triceps brachii (TB).

Figure 2: Bench press repetition performance and volume for each mode (de Araújo Farias. 2016).

The results of the scientists' EMG and total volume analyses indicat that (a) dumbbells elicit a significantly greater pectoralis major activity than barbells, that (b) the anterior deltoid (shoulder) activity peaks on the smith machine, and that (c) the triceps does the least while the biceps the most work when the bench press is done with dumbbells instead of smith machine or barbell.

Chest	Biceps	Back	Core	Legs	Triceps	Shoulders
Navigate the SuppVersity EMG Series - Click on the desired body part to see the optimal exercises.

Figure 3: Mean and standard deviation values for IEMG (a) bench press (pectoralis major activation) and (b) bench press (triceps brachii activation) with and without pre-exhaustion in Suares. 2016).

Why exactly, the triceps activity during the triceps extensions was still reduced after the dumbbell bench press is not clear, but one may argue that the higher EMG activity after barbell bench presses may be the consequence of pre-exhaustion, which has been shown to augment muscle activity in previous studies, already (Brennecke. 2009; Soares. 2016 - see Figure 2); this, obviously, implies that the muscle activity in the barbell trial was increased, which is different from the initially questioned assumption that using dumbbells despite (or rather due to) their low strain on the triceps yielded inferior results.

As previously pointed out, though, there is no way of using these results for reliable prediction about the long-term adaptational response to training with dumbbell, barbell and smith machine. If we go by the prognostic power of training volume, it should be the dumbbell with a total volume of 31.2 ± 3.2 reps (versus the BBP 27.8 ± 4.8) that builds the most muscle. In that, I will leave it up to you to decide whether it's a coincidence that the dumbbell bench press also produced the greatest EMG activity ... ;-)

What I can and still want to tell you, though is that using dumbbells had the added benefit of showing the least interference with the subsequent triceps extensions (total volume: BBP = 1204.4 ± 249.4 kg; DBP = 1216.8 ± 287.5kg SMBP = 1097.5 ± 193 kg) - an observation that appears logical, and still raises the question: what's more conducive for your gains? The pre-exhaustion of the triceps you get from barbell bench presses and the resulting increase in EMG activity, or the rest your triceps will get during dumbbell bench presses and the subsequently increased training volume during triceps extensions. Well, I can't tell, but based on previous studies, it would appear as if the increased activity and decreased volume would balance each other out and explain why previous research found conflicting results (Prestes. 2015).

The jury on "pre-exhaustion" is still out there. But there is evidence of its usefulness I've discussed in previous articles on suppversity.com | example

So what do I do? You remember the benefits of daily changing loads I discussed in June 2016? Well, what if you kept your body guessing on the type of equipment you use, as well? I would not necessarily recommend switching back and forth between barbells, dumbbells, and the smith machine within a single workout and/or from one workout to the next.

What may make sense, on the other hand, is using dumbbells for two, barbells for two weeks, each, and the (boring ;-) smith machine for another week in a 5-week cycle and thus making sure that you grasp the individual benefits of each of them and the added benefit of motivation and keeping the muscle guessing.

On a side note: The study confirms what many of you probably "felt" anyways. The "best" as in "most pectoralis specific way" of bench pressing is clearly the dumbbell, which - much in contrast to the barbell and smith machine - do not allow the pecs to rest while triceps and front delts take over and lift a sign. percentage of the weight | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Brennecke, Allan, et al. "Neuromuscular activity during bench press exercise performed with and without the pre exhaustion method." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.7 (2009): 1933-1940.
• de Araújo Farias, D., et al. "Maximal strength performance and muscle activation for the bench press and triceps extension exercises adopting dumbbell, barbell and machine modalities over multiple sets." Journal of strength and conditioning research (2016).
• Prestes, Jonato, et al. "Discussion of “The effects of pre-exhaustion, exercise order, and rest intervals in a full-body resistance training intervention”− Pre-exhaustion exercise and neuromuscular adaptations: an inefficient method?." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 40.8 (2015): 850-851.
• Soares, Enrico Gori, et al. "Comparison between Pre-Exhaustion and Traditional Exercise Order on Muscle Activation and Performance in Trained Men." Journal of sports science & medicine 15.1 (2016): 111.

SuppVersity EMG Series - M. Triceps Brachii: The Best Exercises to Get That Horseshoe Look on Your Triceps

Image 1: The m. triceps brachii. As if you did not
know where to find your "horseshoes" ;-)

After last week's issue on leg training, devoting a whole issue of the SuppVersity EMG Series to a three headed muscle of your upper arm appears kind of unthrifty... well, maybe we should say "extravagant" and thus acknowledge that a well-built triceps unquestionably contributes to the muscular, athletic look most trainees are trying to achieve - especially if you are wearing one of those short-sleeved business shirts and complement them with appropriately muscled forearms ;-) As its name already implies the triceps consists of three heads,

• the long head, caput longum, which arises from the infraglenoid tubercle of the scapula and extends distally anterior to the teres minor and posterior to the teres major, and
• the two short heads, of which the caput mediale and the caput laterale which run along the rear side of the humerus.

Being the antagonist of the m. biceps brachii, the triceps functions to extend the arm and to stabilize the elbow joint when the forearm and hand have to be held steady to perform independent movements. Moreover, the long head which is the only one that originates from the scapula, also acts on the shoulder joint and is also involved in retroversion and adduction of the arm.

Chest	Biceps	Back	Core	Legs	Triceps	Shoulders
Navigate the SuppVersity EMG Series - Click on the desired body part to see the optimal exercises.

Its effect on the overall appearance of your sleeves aside, triceps strength (not looks, guys!) is a major factor in many sports such as basketball, boxing, gymnastics, tennis, etc. but I guess those of you who are into athletics will know that, anyway so that we can, without further delay, get into the meat and potatoes of EMG optimized triceps-training. Here they are, the most effective exercises for the m. triceps brachii, as measured by electromyography (10 male resistance-trained subjects, mean age 22y, mean body-fat 13%; data from Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies. 2000)...
 
I. Exercises With Standard Equipment for the m. triceps brachii 

As mentioned time and again in the previous installments of this series the idea of training a muscle in isolation, or, in case of the triceps, even training individual heads of a muscle without activation of its other parts is futile. Nevertheless, it is possible to put the focus on a certain part of the muscle and this is, i.e. shifting focus vs. isolating specific muscle strands, is also how I want you to understand the following exercise top 5 for the lateral head and the long head of the m. triceps brachii.

Note: If you are missing a specific list for the caput mediale, i.e. the medial head of the triceps, I suggest you have another look at the triceps anatomy in image 2. Situated right beneath the caput laterale, the EMG activity of the caput mediale will inevitable be recorded, as well, when you place one of the EMG electrodes on the skin right above the caput laterale.

Image 2: Triceps anatomy (image from finalfitness.co.uk)

... for the lateral part (+medial head) Cable push-downs, straight or bend bar SZ-bar triceps extensions, lying on the bench Guillotine presses, shoulder wide grip DB kickbacks, torso horizontal on bench DB extension, single arm, behind the head ... for the long head  DB Kickbacks, incline bench + retroversion BB Neck presses DB kickbacks, torso horizontal on bench DB extension, single arm, behind the head SZ-bar triceps extensions, seated

Figure 1: EMG activity of lateral head and long head of the m. triceps major during selected triceps exercises with standard equipment relative to the SZ-bar lying (lateral head) and seated (long head) triceps extension  (data adapted from Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies. 2000)

Image 3: Its not really necessary to turn the
SZ-bar triceps extension into a pullover,
like the old-school bodybuilders did it.
A regular french press where the
bar does not pass beyond your head will suffice.

While it is not surprising that the SZ-bar triceps extensions (both seated as well as lying on a bench), which also serve as reference exercises for the relative EMG intensities plotted I in figure 1, are among the most effective exercises for both the lateral, as well as the long head of the triceps, the specificity of the triceps kickback on a 60° incline as the #1 exercise for the long head of the m. triceps brachii may come as a surprise. This may be explained by the previously mentioned exclusive role of the long head in the retroversion of the arm, which is particularly challenging, when the angle between your upper arm and your torso is <0° (where 0° would be parallel to your torso as in the bend over triceps kickbacks on a bench).

Training Tip: With DB kickbacks perfect form is the key to optimal triceps activation. This is all the more true if you really want to "isolate" the long head of the triceps with the DB kickbacks on a 60° incline, where it is absolutely imperative to extending the loaded arm backwards, maximally (this by the way is what retroversion means in practice). You also want to keep your upper arm parallel to the floor all (!) the time. If you let it drop back to a neutral  position after each rep that would take away -20% of the intensity! Please do me a favor and start with a really light dumbbell - you will feel that just by retroverting your arm with a light load so that it forms a horizontal line from your shoulder to your pinky, is sufficient to induce a profound muscle burn in the long head.

An even greater surprise, however, probably is the 2nd place of BB behind the neck presses in the ranking of the most effective exercises for the long head. Thus, it is only valid that you are asking yourself "What on earth does a shoulder exercise have to do with my triceps?" Well, think about the origin of the caput longem, it attaches directly to the scapula and is frantically trying to stabilize a movement of which I would think twice whether or not I find it so elementary that I put myself at risk of a tedious shoulder injury, just to get "titanic triceps" or "bolder shoulders" ;-)

Image 4: Using a rope instead of
a straight  or V-bar makes
the cable pushdowns
an overall more balanced exercise

It's also noteworthy, that, other than the SZ triceps extensions or the guillotine presses, which owe their name to the unlucky circumstance that you might decapitate yourself (the standard narrow bench press is already -25% less effective!), when you let the barbell drop, the cable pushdown with the straight or V-bar targets the lateral and the medial head of the triceps almost exclusively. That being said, your triceps routine would not be complete without at least one complementary movement such as the triceps kickback on the 60° incline, where the long head clearly is the weakest link and thus guaranteed to get hammered pretty decently, not even, but especially with appropriately light weights! You may remedy this problem by using a rope instead of a straight or v-bar (cf. image 3). If you deliberately pull the rope apart at the end of the movement you will hit the long head of your triceps pretty efficiently and thus turn the #1 isolation exercise for the lateral head into a more balanced triceps exercise.

II. Body Weight Exercises for the m. triceps brachii 
 

Image 5: If you wonder why Arnold is showing up
in almost each part of this series,  here is your answer:
This guy simple knew what he was doing.

It does not take a rocket scientist, but just a brief glance at the enormous horseshoes of gymnasts to realize that you do not even have to train with metal weights, in order to build impressive upper arms. It is thus not surprising that many pro bodybuilders still swear by doing dips with their arms behind their back in between to benches (cf. image 5), which *surprise* actually turns out to be the most effective body weight exercise you can do to really hammer the lateral head of your triceps.

... for the lateral part (+medial head)
1. Dips, arms behind the back, between two benches (cf. image 5)
2. Dips, bars slightly more than shoulder wide apart, not going past 90° elbow flexion
3. Pushups, fingers facing forward, hands slightly narrower than shoulder width apart

... for the long head 
1. Dips, bars slightly more than shoulder wide apart, not going past 90° elbow flexion
2. Pushups, fingers facing forward, hands slightly narrower than shoulder width apart

Figure 2: EMG activity of lateral head and long head of the m. triceps major during selected body weight triceps exercises relative to dips between bars (data adapted from Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies. 2000)

As you can see, Arnold's behind the back bench dips (cf. image 5), or whatever you want to call them, are simply unbeatable when it comes to activating the lateral head of the triceps. Even in absolute terms, this variety of the dips is only 7% less effective than the SZ-bar lying triceps extension the #2 in the top 5 ranking of the most effective triceps exercises with exercise equipment.

Figure 3: EMG activity of lateral head and long head of the m. triceps major during selected body weight triceps exercises relative to dips between bars (data adapted from Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies. 2000

I've mentioned it before, going all the way down may on the dips does increase the workload on the tendons and joint capsules of your shoulder girdle and is thus neither beneficial for your triceps development (-12% EMG activity), nor for your joints. Flaring out your arms, on the other hand has a much smaller influence on the activation of the caput longe during parallel dips, than you may have expected - in fact, the -3% reduction in EMG activity is practically negligible.
 
III. Conclusion - For Maximal Triceps Development Specialization Does Have Its Place

From all that has been said before, it should have become obvious that, probably even more so than with any other given body part, the use of "specialization" exercises for the individual heads of the triceps does make sense. Although exercises such as the classic dips between two bars (done "Jay Cutler"-ish, i.e. only down to an elbow ankle of 90°) stimulate both the lateral, as well as the long head of the triceps adequately, there is no "jack of all traits"-triceps exercise - not even the SZ-bar triceps extension since you would at least have to switch from a lying to a seated position to adequately stimulate both the caput laterale + mediale as well as the caput longem.

Figure 4: EMG activity of lateral head and long head of the m. triceps major during three common triceps exercises relative to maximal activation of the respective head in any exercise evaluated in the study (data adapted from Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies. 2000)

The data in figure 4 elucidates the inevitable trade-off between maximal stimulation of the lateral and medial head, on the one, and the long head, on the other hand, for three classic triceps exercises. I tried to factor this, as well as my personal observation that out of hundred trainees maybe five do the incline kickbacks the way they are supposed to in with the following exemplary triceps routine (if you are willing and able to do the kickbacks with proper form and adequate weight instead of just swinging the dumbbell up and down on the side of the torso, you can alternate those with the bench dips, I propose as the third exercise in the routine below).

Know your own limits! If you train triceps and biceps with another muscle group on the same day and want to do a single exercise only, I would suggest doing either dips or the suggested mix of lying and seated SZ-bar triceps extensions from the EMG optimized routine below to limit the absolute number of sets you perform.

An EMG-optimized routine
 

Image 6: Although many trainees
swear by it the narrow grip barbell bench
press is not particularly effective in
isolating the triceps and thus did
not make it into the "EMG routine"
(image from everkinetic.com)

There is of course a myriad of ways of combining the individual exercises, my personal recommendation for overall triceps development (based on EMG measures) would yet be as follows

1. SZ-bar triceps extensions*, 6-10 reps *alternate lying and seated variety
2. Cable push downs, 8-12 reps, straight bar or v-bar
3. Bench Dips (cf. image 5), to failure

You may notice that I do not make volume (i.e. set) recommendations. This is due to the fact that I found that everyone has to find what works best for him / her in terms of optimal volume, training frequency and body part splits. This may also change over time / according to lifestyle factors / nutrition and supplementation.