What Steps to Take if the Triceps Muscle Does Not Develop?
Wojciech Wiśniewski
2026-03-21
5 min. read
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Everyone at some point tries to develop their triceps muscles. However, despite the passing of a significant amount of time, the results remain unnoticed. What could be the reason for this? There are many reasons, among them the so-called general ones that affect all muscle groups, such as poor nutrition, lack of progress in training, overtraining, and many others. Below are presented the main reasons for the inhibition of the development of the triceps muscle.
A flawed method of recovery
Regardless of the efficacy of the training, no results will be attained if there is no suitable recovery following its completion. Triceps necessitate amino acids, fats and energy, vitamins and hormones to grow, as well as healthy sleep. If even one of these factors is disregarded, the recovery process may become disrupted. This applies to all muscle groups, not just the triceps. Therefore, triceps should be permitted to rest for extended periods, as they function not only during the exercises for this muscle group, but also during chest and shoulder exercises. Frequently, triceps are trained three times a week.
Three-headed arm muscles – anatomical features
Typically, there are no particular anatomical problems with the three-headed muscle of the arm. However, the long head of the three-headed muscle of the arm is regarded as the strongest and most durable of the other two. It forms the basis for them, and the strength of the others also depends on its growth. However, it may occur that a long head can be genetically weak and atrophic, which negatively affects the muscle mass increase of this group. In such a situation, traditional training plans for the three-headed muscle of the arm will not bring the desired results. It is necessary to apply special exercise complexes focused on the development of the long head. Exercises that will assist in the development of the long head are French presses on the long head. However, this is not enough; it is also necessary to apply the method of pre-exhaustion and partial repetitions. It may also occur that the long head is very long, and the tendon is short. This affects the external appearance, but not the volume and strength development.
An improper combination of muscle groups
The triceps is a smaller muscle group that is usually trained immediately after a larger muscle group. The best choice is to combine triceps training with biceps training, however, it is not always possible to dedicate the entire session to hand training. In the following section, I will present various combinations as well as their advantages and disadvantages in terms of triceps development and other muscle groups.
Other, not subjected to further processing than cold rolling (cold reduction)
– advantages: training merely two minor muscle groups allows for their effective utilization. Moreover, the triceps are larger than the biceps, and training should commence directly from them. Furthermore, multistage triceps exercises are significantly heavier and more energy-consuming, which advocates for starting training from this muscle group. – disadvantages: employing this option during a three-day split requires combining two large muscle groups in another training session.
Pectoral and tricep muscles:
– Advantages: While performing chest exercises, we also train the tricep muscle, so a few additional exercises on the three-headed muscle will effectively fatigue it; – Disadvantages: After executing a large number of multistage exercises on the chest, it will no longer be possible to perform multistage exercises on the three-headed muscle, thus limiting our options to single-stage exercises.
Lower limbs and triceps muscles:
– advantages: the triceps muscles are practically not involved in lower limb training, which allows for effective development; – disadvantages: the leg muscles are a massive muscle group, and in their training, many heavy multijoint exercises are employed. Even if the triceps muscles are practically not working during their execution, the body's energy reserves are severely depleted, which significantly hinders the execution of exercises such as dips on bars or close-grip bench presses.
Deltoids and triceps or triceps and deltoids:
Advantages: Depending on which muscle group is the first, it will have a greater load placed upon it. Disadvantages: If the triceps workout follows the deltoids, then multistage exercises will be difficult to perform because the training of the anterior deltoid muscles heavily engages the triceps. The opposite occurs when we first train the triceps. In addition, after deltoid training, energy resources are significantly depleted as all three deltoid muscles need to be trained. Essentially, it is best to try all combinations and decide which has the greatest impact on triceps development and which does not allow progress.
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