FIX This Common "SKULL-CRUSHER" Tricep Workout MISTAKE!! (More gains + injury prevention)

What's up guys, I'm Michael Kamalu, medical student here with DrGainesMD, and I have my assistant here, DrBones, and today we're going to walk through one of the most common mistakes with tricep lifts, and give you a very simple fix that will allow you to both greatly increase the amount of progress that you see in your tricep workouts, and simultaneously decrease the chance of you hurting yourself, in those gains without pains. First let's take a look at the bad example, which is doing what we call skullcrussers on laying flat on a bench with your arm extended out straight in front of you. I have my assistant Bones here demonstrate what goes on here. As you can see, with free weights, the resistance is always gravity, right? And gravity has only one direction, which is down. So, if gravity is pushing this weight down, then it's going straight from joint to joint to joint to bench to ground, without needing any resistance in any muscles anywhere at the top of this rep, which happens to be the point at which your triceps are most flexed, it's their peak contraction. So with this position, you are getting absolutely zero resistance at the peak contraction of the workout, which is when you want it the most. Now, the second issue with this position is, as I bring the weight down, look what happens to this fulcrum, which is the elbow. Gravity is still smashing down on that elbow, and as the weight gets further down, these ligaments feel more and more pressure, and as you get down into an acute angle, it reaches a point where there's possible tendon rupture, even. So because the gravity is bearing down directly on the top of your elbow in this position, it is really bad for the joints. Many of you have probably got done with a set of skull crutchers, and said, man, my elbow hurt after that. And if not, then there's also the possibility of chronic buildup of muscle injury, that you will not realize until things start tearing out of nowhere. So we definitely want to avoid all of that, and still be able to get the kind of muscle increase that we're looking for in our triceps. So what can we do? One strategy is just to lift your arms further above your head to get a better optimal angle to the resistance. What I mean by that is, instead of having my arms straight here, I start the rep with it further back. Now, that will bring some success, because now you've got gravity going down on muscle beds instead of just on the joints, and so you will have increased resistance this way. But this technique actually introduces a whole new set of issues, because check out the shoulder joint. You now have to have your shoulder locked in an overhead acute position, and for many of us who have had chronic shoulder injuries, that can be a pretty bad recipe for re-injury and severe pain. Now I want to give you a way where you can fix these issues with the tricep skull crushers without sacrificing any shoulder mobility as well, and that is what you see in this next video up here, simply doing them on a decline bench. Now, you can modify the amount of decline that suits best for you, I suggest you try it out, but what decline does is, unfortunately I can't do decline with bones here, but just imagine that his body is coming down at a slant now, and his arm would be coming straight out from his body, but because his body is at an angle to the ground, his arm now is not parallel to the resistance, so instead of having it straight up and down, weight just gets transferred straight down into the bench, the arm is now outstretched, and you get resistance going straight into the muscle beds. And what's better, now when I flex that joint, I don't have the same amount of direct tension caused by gravity that I would if my joint was straight up and down. Now that it's at an angle, I can disperse the weight across the upper and lower arm, relieving a lot of the tension on the elbow joint. So from there, from the decline position, I can now do my tricep skull crushers, and you'll notice at the most important part of this rep, at the very top, which is when you're getting max contraction of those triceps, you're getting a lot of resistance because gravity is hammering down on your arm at that point, which is exactly what you want. Now I just want to give you two other tips more towards form in doing these skull crushers. First, keep your elbows in. A lot of people have a tendency to get their elbows out as they get their hands back to their face. Now that is going to end up bringing a lot of internal rotation muscles, and you can actually screw up your shoulder and elbows even more if you do that. So keep your elbows in, nice and tight, and make sure that the triceps are the only things bringing your arms back up. Which leads me to the second tip, and that's to relax your wrists. You want to have your palms always facing the ceiling with this lift. Now imagine that I'm lying back on a bench, and a lot of people have the tendency to grip the bar really tight, and so when they bring it up, they flex their forearms as they come up, and a lot of the weight actually ends up being transferred to the forearms, biceps, and other collateral muscles, taking away the work from the triceps. Now we really want to make the triceps do all the work here, so in order to keep my hands facing the ceiling, as I bring my arms up, it forces me to create extension in my wrist, which will completely take out all of the anterior flexor muscles, and make it so that the only thing bringing my hand forward at that point are my triceps, and it will isolate them perfectly. Guys, if you thought this was helpful, I'd appreciate you leaving me a comment or a like, hit that subscribe button for more videos, and share with your friends. If you have any specific questions, find me on Instagram at DrGaines underscore MD, and I'll be happy to answer your questions, and look forward to working with you more.