How to Do the Cable Skullcrusher Variation to Build Your Triceps | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle
How to Do the Cable Skullcrusher Variation to Build Your Triceps | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle
Category
🥇
SportTranscript
00:00One of the best triceps isolation exercises out there is something called
00:04the skull crusher. Now this is traditionally done with either dumbbells
00:08or a barbell or an easy curl bar and it is a great way to feel that stretch
00:13position and have tension when our triceps is on stretch, but it has a
00:17weakness. Once we get up to that contracted position, unless our form is
00:21perfect, unless we're leaning our upper arms in just the right way, we don't
00:25often get a really good squeeze, so we don't often get that really good peak
00:30contraction. Now what if I told you there was a move that could fix that, just a
00:33slight evolution of the skull crusher that's going to use a different tool.
00:37That's what we have in the cable skull crusher. Now this is one of my favorite
00:42moves to do for triceps and it is a move that is almost guaranteed to give you a
00:46great triceps pump, but you have to understand how to do it because this
00:50isn't simply just lying on a bench and literally duplicating everything we do
00:55with a dumbbell or an easy bar skull crusher. Instead, we have to make a
00:58couple small tweaks so that we can really maximize the move, but again once
01:02you do that, you're gonna get an awesome stretch at the bottom of the move
01:06because the cables are gonna help us in this way and we're still gonna get a
01:09really really good squeeze at the top of the move. It is a guaranteed triceps pump,
01:13so let's break it all down for you. So we have Brett here to demo the basic
01:16cable skull crusher and again you're gonna think initially that this is a
01:20dumbbell skull crusher or a barbell skull crusher, so you're probably gonna
01:23set up a lot like Brett's gonna do initially here, but this may seem like
01:27the best way to do a cable skull crusher once you get started, except we want to
01:31make a couple tweaks so we can really take advantage of the move. First off, we
01:34want to get Brett's feet off of the bench. Nothing annoys me more than people
01:38putting their feet on the bench. One, because it's not great, this is not your
01:42living room, I guess I don't need to give that lecture, but two, because you want to
01:45have a nice solid base, so Brett wants to drive his feet into the ground and make
01:49sure he maintains that position on his cable skull crusher. The other two very
01:53critical things that he wants to do, one, we're actually gonna change up the tool.
01:57If we go back to Brett doing that basic skull crusher, that handle is going to
02:03eventually hit his forehead. We can shift to a cable, if we shift away from that
02:07straight edge handle and we go to a rope instead, we instantly get to do two
02:13things that are really awesome. One, we're gonna get to push the range of motion,
02:16we're gonna get a lot closer to our head with a little bit more freedom, and two,
02:20we're gonna get to keep our palms in neutral when we're doing this. That's a
02:24lot more of a natural position for our elbows and it's gonna make it easier for
02:28us to maintain external rotation at the shoulder joint too. When Brett does this
02:32though, and you can see your initial, when you grab any rope handles, you're gonna
02:37want to grab it from the bottom. That's where we normally do it, but I'm actually
02:40gonna have Brett grab it from the top. Now this is gonna give him a little bit
02:45more control and it's also going to ensure that he gets maximum range of
02:49motion no matter what cable machine he's using. So that's the other critical piece
02:53of his setup. As you can see, you can get a lot more range, you can get much deeper
02:57on this cable skull crusher. Let's hold at the bottom for a split second, Brett.
03:01He's getting a lot more stretch in this position than he was with the bar, but
03:06he's still getting to keep those palms in neutral, so that's a really, really
03:09awesome position. That's a really, really good start to fixing the cable skull
03:13crusher and getting a lot more out of it. And notice when he gets to the top, as we
03:17were saying, that the thing that you don't get when you do a dumbbell or an
03:20easy bar skull crusher, when you get to that top, your joints are stacked. You're
03:23not necessarily getting a really good tricep squeeze unless we make a couple
03:26adjustments. Here, let's go to the top. He can keep his joints stacked and he's
03:30still getting a really good squeeze on his triceps. Now there's one more
03:33adjustment we're gonna make. Let's get up off the bench, Brett. The only other thing
03:37I'm gonna have him do, and you can play with this however you want, we're gonna
03:42go to an incline. So now we have the bench set up on an incline. We're only
03:46using a 15 degree incline. That's all you need. And again, you can play with this
03:49over the life of our training. But now we're gonna get stretch at both the
03:53elbow joint and the shoulder joint. Getting more stretch on the triceps is
03:56never a bad thing when we can create tension from that position. So how is
04:01Brett gonna set up for this? The common mistake people are gonna make is the one
04:04Brett is making right now. He's all the way at the bottom of the bench and he's
04:08essentially setting up as if he were to do some sort of incline press. But what
04:13we actually want to do is we want to scoot Brett up. The bench is helping him find an
04:18angle, but then he's gonna he's gonna contract his abs, he's gonna contract his
04:21glutes. Now he can get a deeper stretch when he lowers down and the bench is no
04:27longer in the way. Now he doesn't need to shift his elbows back too far. He can
04:31think about keeping his upper arms perpendicular to the ground or shifting
04:35them back just a little bit. No matter what, let's go into that lower position
04:39as a whole. This is a lot of work for Brett too because this is a position of
04:42work. He's got stretch on his elbow joint through the triceps. He's also got
04:46stretch at the shoulder joint. That is a great position to live in for a split
04:50second. Now he's gonna drive up, essentially trying to point his elbows
04:53to the ceiling, stacking his joints, but he's still got tension from that cable.
04:57It's a really, really good way to get a lot of tension on your triceps at the
05:02bottom and then get a really, really good contraction. Lower within your mobility,
05:06the lower you can get your wrists to your shoulders, the more stretch you're
05:10getting on that triceps and that is a really, really good thing. The only other
05:14thing I want Brett to try to do is not let his elbows flare out when he's in
05:18that lowered position. Essentially think about pointing your elbows towards your
05:22hips in front of you. When you're in that lowered position, it's gonna force you
05:25into external rotation, make your triceps work extra hard. So that is our cable
05:30skull crusher. Again, one of my favorite triceps moves and a move that can fit
05:34into your workouts in a number of ways. We can use this as our only triceps
05:39exercise on a push day after we've done our bench press, after we've done a
05:42little bit of overhead work. In this situation, you might want to take it a
05:46little bit lighter. Think about going for three sets of 10 to 12 reps. You're gonna
05:49chase that pump because that's the one thing you're guaranteed to get out of
05:53the cable skull crusher. We can also use this as a lead move on an arm day or in
05:58a superset situation. Let's say we're doing dumbbell biceps curls. We're gonna
06:01lead off with that skull crusher as our triceps move in the superset. In this
06:06situation, think about doing it for three sets of eight to ten reps. That way
06:10we go a little bit heavier, but you're gonna take your time, really appreciate
06:13that eccentric, and then push for that good contraction at the top. Either way,
06:17this is a move that really should be in everybody's routine. It does not replace
06:21our dumbbell skull crushers because we're gonna be able to go much heavier
06:24with our dumbbell skull crushers, barbell moves, and easy bar skull crushers. But
06:28this is a great way to change things up and to push for a really good
06:31contraction and make sure you're getting a ton of work for your triceps and a ton
06:35of time under tension. So get it in your routine somehow.