reckonerOverhead dumbbell triceps extension
The same elbow extension as a press-down, done with the arm above your head. That one change puts the long head on stretch for the whole set, and it is the difference the research has the most to say about.
Keep the elbows in and pointing up.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Triceps
- Kit
- Dumbbell
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 1 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Some technique
- Recovery cost
- Low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Shoulder, elbow
Muscles worked
How to do it
Take less weight than you think
The overhead position is mechanically weaker and it is meant to be. In a twelve week comparison the arm training overhead used between 34 and 39 per cent lower absolute loads throughout and still grew more1. Starting light here is the lift working, not you being cautious.
Get the bell overhead safely
Either one bell held in two hands, cupped under the top plate, or a lighter bell in each hand. Press it up to a straight arm before you start lowering, sitting or standing with the ribs down and the lower back flat.
Keep the elbows in and pointing up
That is the cue Reckoner puts on your wrist. The upper arms stay beside your ears and vertical for every rep. Everything below the elbow moves and nothing above it does.
Lower behind the head, then press back to straight
Let the forearms travel back and down until you feel the stretch behind the arm, then reverse. The bottom is the reason to do this movement overhead at all, so a rep that stops halfway has thrown away the point of the set.
What goes wrong
Letting the elbows flare out
The elbows go wide, the bell drops in a shallower arc, and the shoulders and chest quietly join in. It happens on the rep after the one you should have stopped at. Keep them narrow and pointing at the ceiling, or take a lighter bell.
Stopping short at the bottom
Cutting the bottom off turns the lift back into a press-down with a worse setup. The stretched position is where the long head is loaded at length, and the long head is the only one of the three that crosses the shoulder3, so it is the only one that cares where your arm is.
Trying to match your press-down weight
They are not the same load and never will be. In the study above the overhead arm was between a third and two fifths weaker in absolute terms and still gained about one and a half times as much long head volume1. Chasing the number is how the elbows end up flaring.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 12 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 10 at 12 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 at 12 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 at 12 kg | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 at 12 kg | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 at 12 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 14 at 12 kg | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Is this really better than a press-down?
For the long head, on the best evidence available, yes. Twenty one adults trained one arm overhead and one by the side on a cable machine for twelve weeks: the long head gained 28.5 per cent against 19.6 per cent, the two heads that only cross the elbow gained 14.6 per cent against 10.5 per cent, and the whole triceps 19.9 per cent against 13.9 per cent1. Two things to hold onto. That was one trial, and it compared arm positions on a cable rather than a dumbbell against a rope, so reading it as a verdict on the dumbbell is reasoning rather than a result.
My shoulder does not like being overhead. Is that a problem?
Nobody has followed lifters over time and counted shoulder injuries between overhead and by the side triceps work, so nothing on this page can tell you the position is safe or unsafe. What is on the record is that shoulder angle rather than elbow angle is what moves the triceps' contribution at the shoulder2, and that the long head attaches to the scapula and blends into the shoulder capsule3. If the position hurts, that is a reason to use a movement you can do well rather than a reason to work through it.
What does Reckoner do when this lift stalls?
It eases the load first and lets you rebuild toward the weight you were stuck at. Only if the lift stalls again after that reset does it offer you something else from the group below, so a swap is the last rung rather than the first.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.
Sources
- Maeo and colleagues, European Journal of Sport Science, 2023. Triceps brachii hypertrophy is substantially greater after elbow extension training performed in the overhead versus neutral arm position twelve weeks of within-participant cable elbow extension training, the overhead arm using 34 to 39 per cent lower absolute loads and gaining 28.5 per cent long head volume against 19.6 per cent, 14.6 per cent against 10.5 per cent in the lateral and medial heads, and 19.9 per cent against 13.9 per cent overall
- Landin, Thompson and Jackson, Journal of Clinical Medicine Research, 2018. Functions of the triceps brachii in humans: a review shoulder angle rather than elbow angle governing the triceps' shoulder extension moment, and the long head's role in stabilizing the abducted shoulder
- Tiwana, Sinkler and Bordoni, StatPearls, National Library of Medicine, 2023. Anatomy, shoulder and upper limb, triceps muscle the long head originating on the infraglenoid tubercle of the scapula, crossing the shoulder joint, and helping hold the humeral head in the glenoid