maratoolLying Dumbbell Tricep Extension
How to do the lying dumbbell tricep extension
- Lie on a flat bench while holding two dumbbells directly in front of you. Your arms should be fully extended at a 90-degree angle from your torso and the floor. The palms should be facing in and the elbows should be tucked in. This is the starting position.
- As you breathe in and you keep the upper arms stationary with the elbows in, slowly lower the weight until the dumbbells are near your ears.
- At that point, while keeping the elbows in and the upper arms stationary, use the triceps to bring the weight back up to the starting position as you breathe out.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
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 chest adds pushing force at the shoulder; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
How this movement works
One joint moves, and it moves the load away from the body. With nothing recruited to assist, the target muscle reaches its own limit rather than the limit of the weakest link in a chain — which makes this useful for adding volume after the heavy compound work, not for opening a session.
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:
- Lying Tricep Extension with Cablecable
- Lying Triceps Presse-z curl bar
- Lying Triceps Press with Barbellbarbell
- Machine Triceps Extensionmachine
- Overhead Tricepsbody only
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 99 triceps exercises in this database, 26 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.