reckonerStraight-bar press-down
The triceps press-down with a straight bar on a high pulley. Elbows pinned, bar from chest height down to your thighs, and nothing else moves. It rewards strict reps more than heavy ones.
Pin the elbows, press to the thighs.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Triceps
- Kit
- Cable
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2.5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Simple to learn
- Recovery cost
- Very low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Elbow
Muscles worked
How to do it
Stand close and grip the bar
Face a high pulley with a straight bar clipped on. Hands about shoulder width, palms down, standing close enough that the cable runs nearly straight down, so the pull stays in line with your forearms.
Pin the elbows to your sides
Bring the bar to about chest height with your elbows tucked against your ribs. They stay there for the whole set, because the elbow is the only joint this lift wants moving.
Press to the thighs
Straighten your elbows until the bar touches your thighs and your arms are locked out. Squeeze the back of the arm at the bottom, where the triceps finish the job.
Let it rise to chest height
Let the bar come back up under control until your forearms are a little above level, then press again. Stop there rather than letting the elbows ride up, which hands the next rep to the shoulders.
What goes wrong
Leaning over the bar
Leaning in lets bodyweight push the bar down, so a heavier stack moves. It reads as a heavier set while the triceps did less. Stand tall and take weight off.
Elbows drifting forward
Letting the elbows swing forward makes the top of each rep easier, so it creeps in late in a set. The shoulders start to help. Keep them pinned, so only the forearms move.
Stopping short of lockout
Stopping a little early keeps the reps coming, so the set feels productive. The last few degrees of straightening are the triceps' job and the hardest part of the rep. Finish every one with straight arms.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 20 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 20 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 at 20 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 at 20 kg | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 at 20 kg | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 at 20 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 20 kg | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and 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
Straight bar or rope?
Both train the triceps with the arm at your side. The bar loads both arms through one handle. The rope lets the hands spread at the bottom. Reckoner keeps them as separate lifts, so pick one per block and progress it.
Is a press-down enough for the triceps?
It works, and it may not be the whole story. In a twelve week trial the same cable extension grew the triceps more with the arm overhead than with the arm at the side1. A shorter six week trial in novices found no difference2. Pairing it with an overhead extension covers both readings.
Will Reckoner put this in my plan?
It can. It sits in the triceps extension group, so it may be placed or offered as a swap for another triceps lift. Elbow is recorded against it.
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 twenty-one adults training one arm with cable elbow extensions overhead and the other with the arm at the side for twelve weeks, whole triceps volume rising 19.9 per cent overhead against 13.9 per cent at the side
- Stasinaki and colleagues, Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology, 2018. Triceps Brachii Muscle Strength and Architectural Adaptations with Resistance Training Exercises at Short or Long Fascicle Length nine novice women training one arm with cable press-downs and the other with overhead extensions for six weeks, with strength and muscle thickness rising similarly in both. Over five years old, small, and the shorter of the two arm position trials