Exercise library
Tricep Pushdown
How to stop your shoulders and lower back taking over the pushdown, rope versus bar, and why the long head needs an overhead movement instead.
How to do the tricep pushdown
- 01Set the cable at roughly upper-chest height and attach a rope or straight bar.
- 02Stand close to the stack, feet staggered, with a slight forward lean from the hips.
- 03Pin your elbows to your sides. They stay there for the entire set — this is the exercise.
- 04Extend your forearms down until the elbows are straight, and briefly squeeze.
- 05Let the weight return only until your forearms are just past parallel, keeping the elbows pinned.
Coaching cues
- Elbows are hinges bolted to your ribs. Only the forearm moves.
- Lean forward slightly so the cable path lines up with your arm.
- With a rope, pull apart at the bottom to finish the contraction.
Common mistakes
FaultElbows drifting forward and up
FixThat converts it into a partial press with the shoulders and lats helping. Pin the elbows and reduce the weight until they stay.
FaultLeaning further and further over the stack
FixBody weight is now pushing the handle down. A slight lean is fine; a progressive one means the weight is too heavy.
FaultBouncing the stack at the top of the return
FixStop just past parallel and reverse. Letting the plates crash removes tension and hammers the elbow joint.
FaultExpecting it to build the whole triceps
FixThe long head crosses the shoulder and is barely stretched here. Pair pushdowns with an overhead extension.
The tricep pushdown is the most-performed arm exercise in any gym and the one most reliably turned into something else.
Only the forearm moves
Your elbows should behave like hinges bolted to your ribcage. Upper arm fixed, forearm swings down, forearm swings back. That is the whole movement.
When the weight gets heavy, the elbows drift forward and upward on each rep. That brings the lats and shoulders into it, gives you a mechanical advantage, and lets you move a heavier stack while giving your triceps less. It feels like progress and is not.
If you cannot keep the elbows pinned for ten reps, the weight is wrong.
Lean in a little, once
A slight forward lean from the hips lines your arms up with the cable and lets the elbows sit comfortably at your sides.
The failure mode is a lean that increases through the set until you are pushing the handle down with your body weight. Set the lean before rep one and hold it.
What pushdowns miss
The triceps have three heads, and the long head is the largest. It crosses the shoulder joint as well as the elbow, which means it is only fully stretched when your upper arm is overhead.
In a pushdown your arm is down by your side, so the long head is in a shortened position throughout and contributes relatively little. Everything you have read about pushdowns not building triceps size traces back to this.
The fix is not a different handle. It is adding a movement with the arms overhead — a cable overhead extension or a dumbbell version — so the long head gets loaded at length.
Reps and frequency
This is a small single-joint movement at a joint that does not enjoy heavy loading. Ten to twenty reps suits it.
Remember that your triceps already work hard in every bench press and overhead press you do. A few direct sets twice a week is usually the right dose on top of that.
Common questions
Why do I feel tricep pushdowns in my shoulders?
Because your elbows are travelling forward and up instead of staying pinned to your ribs. That turns the movement into a partial press driven by the lats and shoulders. Pin the elbows, lean forward slightly, and drop the weight until they stay put.
Rope or straight bar for pushdowns?
The rope allows a neutral grip and lets you separate your hands at the bottom for a slightly stronger contraction. The straight bar allows more load. Neither meaningfully changes which head of the triceps you train — that is determined by shoulder position, not by the handle.
Do pushdowns work the long head of the triceps?
Only partially. The long head crosses the shoulder joint, so it is only fully stretched when your arm is overhead. Pushdowns train the lateral and medial heads well but leave the long head under-stimulated. Add an overhead extension to cover it.
How heavy should tricep pushdowns be?
Light enough that your elbows stay pinned and your torso stays still. Sets of ten to twenty work well for a single-joint arm movement, and the elbow joint tolerates that better than heavy low-rep work.
How often should I train triceps?
The triceps already get substantial work from every press you do. For most people, two direct sessions a week of a few sets is plenty on top of pressing — more than that tends to interfere with bench and overhead press recovery.
Swap it out
Same training effect, different demand on the joints.