The 3 Best Medial Head Triceps Exercises for Targeted Emphasis

The medial head of your triceps helps stabilize your elbow and fills out your upper arm for a proportional look. While you can't entirely separate it from the other heads of your triceps muscle, you can choose targeted, medial head triceps exercises that emphasize its involvement.

Why all the fuss about which head of your triceps you're working? If you're not bodybuilding, it usually doesn't matter — all you have to do is choose triceps exercises that work your arms from a variety of angles, and include them in the full-body workouts prescribed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to maintain optimal health.

But if you've been bodybuilding or want to get started, and if you think you need some more volume on the medial side (inner-arm side) of your triceps, it pays to focus on the medial head of the triceps. That's the side that's closest to your body, and it tends to be particularly active when your arm is flexed at the shoulder. The other heads of the triceps are the long head, which crosses both your elbow and shoulder joints, and the lateral head, which is easily visible from the side.

The information about your medial triceps and shoulder angle isn't guesswork. Most EMG studies of the triceps track activity in the long and lateral heads, but one of the few studies that also tracked activity in the medial head was published in the May 2018 issue of ​Acta Orthopaedica et Traumatologica Turcica.​

In that study, researchers used electromyography (EMG) to evaluate how different degrees of shoulder flexion affected the activity of the three triceps heads. The key takeaways are: While you can't completely isolate one head of the triceps from the others, you can strategically select exercises that emphasize the head you most want to develop.

In the case of the medial head triceps, that means getting your elbows out in front of you. The study showed that the medial head showed the most activation at 90, 135 and 180 degrees of shoulder flexion. The lateral head of your triceps kicks in more strongly as your arm is raised too, but the medial head generates more force.

So how can you shift the most emphasis possible to your triceps? With limited exceptions, the best approach is to get your elbows up and away from your body, but still keep them tucked close together (not splayed out) to minimize the involvement of other muscles. And when in doubt, opt for an underhand or neutral hand position.

Here are three exercises for targeted emphasis:

According to the ​Acta Orthopaedica​ study, working your arm at (or near) 180 degrees of shoulder flexion — with your upper arm pointing straight up — increases involvement of the medial head triceps. So although the overhead triceps press is often reckoned as an exercise for the long head of your triceps, there's a strong argument for using it to develop your medial triceps too.

There are many different theories about which hand position makes for the best medial head triceps development during triceps pushdowns, and little to no clinical evidence to support them. But at least everybody agrees that this exercise is good for both the medial and lateral heads of your triceps — and it's generally accepted that using an underhand grip on a straight handle will emphasize your medial head triceps development.

According to an August 2011 study sponsored and published by the American Council on Exercise, the triangle push-up — sometimes called a diamond push-up — is one of the best workouts for both the long and lateral heads of your triceps. So what's it doing in a list of exercises for the medial triceps head?

Two reasons: One, the ACE study didn't test activity in the medial triceps, but this exercise is generally accepted as being excellent for the medial head of your triceps too. And two, because you don't need any equipment for this exercise, you can drop and crank out a set of these any time, anywhere.

Body position is important for any variation on the push-up — but especially this one, because it's very challenging compared to a normal push-up. Use a mirror or a friend's help to check your positioning throughout the motion: Your body should stay flat like a board. If your hips pike up or sag down past the line of your body, focus on maintaining a tight core — and if that doesn't work, consider bending your knees to assume a modified push-up position.