21/12/2023
Side Triceps
One of my strongest, and favourite poses.
It really allowed me to show off the thickness of my triceps, which were built from mainly three mainstay exercises during my career.
These were lying tricep extensions where I worked my way up to 80kg with the ez barbell.
Cable push downs from the lat pulldown station. Try it yourself on the lat pulldown instead of the traditional cable crossover station. I found it much better, smoother and the resistance just felt better.
One thing I always did was attach a 20kg plate to a weight belt around my waist to keep me grounded. Especially when I went heavy on this exercise, rather than having to fight gravity and of course, my personal battle with the exercise. It was in my favour to use this aid so that I could solely focus on stimulating the hell out of my triceps.
To work each arm independently, I did use the Nautilus triceps extension machine until ‘93 when I made the decision to switch to single arm cable push downs. Now these were actually performed on the cable crossover station.
But back to the side triceps pose, in my first Novice show in Morecambe, I weighed 210lbs and had very good proportions, but as I was still learning the art of posing, hadn’t made this pose my own.
Over the years I modified it to showcase the density of my physique and to dominate the stage. I became significantly heavier too at 265lbs.
So with the combined size and shredded conditioning, and many hours spent practising my posing, I reformed the pose and put my back leg further behind and outwards and this change, became my trademark.
By doing this, I could display the depth and power of my hamstrings and calves which enhanced the pose altogether and made a statement.
It’s generally accepted that I had the best side triceps pose in bodybuilding. But that doesn’t mean I had the best triceps. There’s a LOT more to this pose and it’s the whole body that’s judged.
The delts, hamstrings, calves, quads, chest and abs all play a huge role.
Each muscle in my body was tensed, my abs were controlled, the positioning of my body was done in such a way that I was able to conquer the grandest stage of bodybuilding.