X3 Tricep Press

In weight lifting, the X3 tricep press movement would be called a skull crusher. I don’t particularly like that name. It doesn’t sound very positive. But you start with the bar kind of forehead level, and then you push out without locking the elbow.

Notice that only this joint moves. I’m not moving this joint at all. This is frozen. I go from here to here. That’s the movement for isolating the triceps. You have to keep in the pattern of exactly that movement to do this right. And that way, you’re only exhausting the triceps and nothing else.

Now some people do have some issues that have a latex allergy. I have a latex allergy. So latex rubbing right here can be a little irritating for the skin.

As long as I either wear a long sleeve shirt while I do the movement or what I do most of the time because I’m on camera, I’m going to wear a short sleeve shirt or sometimes no shirt at all, and the only part that gets really kind of rubbed is at the upper arm.

I take a damp paper towel and wipe it off to get the latex powder off my skin. The allergy stops.

The setup is similar to the tricep press with the chest press. We end up holding the bar higher, though. Instead of a chest level, you end up holding the bar kind of at eyebrow level. So a little bit higher, and then you slightly bend forward, maybe to a 45-degree angle, and begin hinging at the elbow.

The only contracted muscle is the triceps, and it stays that way.

You don’t move your upper arm. You hinge at the elbow and press downward. Now notice the constant tension. Slack never is put into the band, and again, Kyle’s only hinging at the elbow. He’s isolating the tricep. He’s going to do 15 to 40 slow and controlled repetitions. Two to three seconds up. Two to three seconds down.

You will very quickly get stronger with this exercise, and you’ll likely add more repetitions with every workout, if not every other one.

Kyle will continue performing the movement until he can’t get through the full range of motion. So he’s performing diminishing range reps here, as with all other X3 exercises.

He’s going to shorten the range to go as far as possible with every repetition. As the repetition becomes shorter, the weight becomes a little lower. He’s fatiguing more and more of the muscle cells until he eventually gets to the last repetition, where he can barely move.