[quote]G87 wrote:
You’ve been on a bodybuilding site for years but can’t figure skullcrushers vs dips?
CC, could you share the alternative to dips you’re hinting at?
Speaking for myself, my body hates skullcrushers but is fine with dips. Overall, though, I prefer close grip (tris) and incline bench (chest).[/quote]
If you have a decent smith machine, use it for tricep training… Seriously. Especially on BBB where you train shoulders before triceps.
In the smith:
-In-Human Presses
-Wide-RGB (“special” grip)
You can press towards your feet (or try to) as well as up on both of these. Helps a lot with taking stress off the shoulders and really doing the long head of the tris in.
Setup (except grip style and width) is standard pl bench setup, sort of.
-HS Dip machine… I don’t have one, but so many guys swear by this thing. I’m still not a fan of dips though.
-Free-weight CGP, elbows tucked all the way, (suicide)-grip as wide as necessary for full tuck. I’m stronger on that one than on the regular bench press. PL setup.
Not good after shoulder work though, numbers will suffer too much.
So if doing them after shoulder work (say, on BBB), I’d use a board to take out the bottom (shoulder) part of ROM. Can be a fairly thick board, you’ll have to experiment…
Skullcrusher alternatives:
-Pjr pullover+extensions (stop with upper arms at an incline) ← If done right, those totally murder the long head… One of the few exercises that still give me DOMs every time I do it. Don’t do it like a lat-pullover, setup-wise though. No elbow issues here, but guys with small hands might want to use 2 DB’s instead…
-“dead skulls” ← EZ extensions on the floor/bench where you bring the bar down behind your head and let it rest on the bench or floor(in case of the latter, don’t use the 45 lb plates here! too little ROM.) briefly and then bring it back up (stop with upper arms at an incline).
-DB rolling extensions. Watch maraudermeat/christopher drummond do them on youtube (“rawelite” profile)
-Scott Extensions/Face-away extensions/lean-away extensions… Either standing and lunging forward or on your knees with elbows on a bench or some such. Used to be a fav. of the barbarian brothers, for example.
/hijack