maratoolIncline Triceps Extensions with Dumbbell
How to do the incline triceps extensions with dumbbell
- Grasp a dumbbell in each hand and lie against an incline bench, face up with your feet firmly planted on the floor.
- Extend your arms over your shoulders with your palms facing each other.
- Slowly lower the dumbbells behind your head by bending your elbows.
- With a controlled motion raise your arms back up to the starting position.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the triceps brachii, which straightens the elbow, and through its long head helps pull the arm back at the shoulder.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.
Every exercise using:Dumbbell
These train the triceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- JM Pressbarbell
- Kneeling Triceps Concentration Extension with Cablecable
- Lying Triceps Presse-z curl bar
- Machine Triceps Extensionmachine
- Overhead Tricepsbody only
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.