15 Min Tricep Workout with Dumbbells – No Repeat is a tough and intense tricep finisher workout from Caroline Girvan. You don’t have to use it as a finisher if you don’t want to. If it is tricep day for you then this workout alone will fry them. I, however, did use it as a finisher. I did a full length back and bicep workout, a 10 minute chest finisher then I finished everything off with this. And man, my triceps are fried! I am in the middle of Caroline’s Iron Series and I have increased the weights I used for triceps. I wanted to use those heavier weights for this workout but I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do it. First, because my upper body was already fatigued from just working my back, biceps and chest hard. Second, Caroline only gives you 15 second recoveries in this workout. One of the reasons I have been able to lift heavier recently is because of the longer recoveries in the Iron Series. So I had lighter back up weights within quick and easy reach! But I surprised myself! I stuck with those heavier weights throughout the entire 15 minutes! But I confess, at the end I was dropping to my knees during the tricep push ups. There are so many of them and my triceps were dead! Caroline, of course, is a beast. She is using 17.6 pound weights for her triceps. I doubt I will ever use weights that heavy for my triceps.
The exercises are done interval style: 45 seconds of work followed by 15 seconds of recovery. There is a timer in the upper left hand side of the screen, counting down your intervals and recoveries. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage. Unlike most of Caroline’s workouts, there is no intro–you just dive straight into the workout.
15 Min Tricep Workout with Dumbbells – No Repeat is 16:35 minutes; no warm up and 45 second stretch. Equipment: dumbbells and fitness mat. Caroline is using 8kg/17.6 pound dumbbells. The weights listed below are what I used.
- Skull crushers (lay on back with a DB in each hand, raise arms to ceiling, keeping elbows in line with shoulders, bend elbows bringing ends of DBs down beside ears) (12# DBs)
- Past head crushers (the same as a skull crusher but elbows are not in line with shoulders they are further back so that when elbows bent, the ends of DBs lower just behind head) (12# DBs)
- Shoulder crushers (similar to a narrow chest/tricep press but rather than keeping DBs level, when you lower the DBs, angle them so one end of DBs tap shoulders) (12# DBs)
- Tricep press (narrow chest press, keeping arms close to sides) (18# DBs)
- Tate press (lay on back, knees bent and feet in floor, DBs are extended to ceiling with palms facing feet/legs, bend elbows bringing ends of DBs to chest then straighten arms again) (12# Dbs)
- Tricep push up
- Overhead extension (still laying on back, hold one DB in both hands, extend arms overhead on an angle, keep arms stationary from shoulders to elbows, bending the elbows, raise and lower the DB) (one 18# DB)
- Diamond press (hold one DB in each hand w/ DBs pressed together over chest, push DBs halfway up for 15 seconds, push DBs to ceiling and lower halfway for 15 seconds, do a full diamond press for the final 15 seconds) (18# DBs)
- x1 slow diamond press (same position as #8 but push up DBs and lower so slowly that you are only do one rep the entire interval) (18# DBs)
- Diamond push up (hands are together under chest so thumbs and forefingers form a diamond)
- Tricep dips (hands on edge of chair behind you with legs extended straight)
- Deadstop tricep push ups (lower body to floor, raise hands off floor, place hands on floor and push back up to plank, hands are under shoulders and arms remain close to sides)
- Tricep dips (same position as #11, lower to bottom of dip but only raise halfway for first 15 seconds; with arms straight on chair, partially bend elbows for second 15 seconds; for final 15 seconds do a full tricep dip)
- Skull crusher push ups (in forearm plank, raise elbows off mat so you are in straight arm plank)
- x1 slow tricep push up (lower and raise so slowly that you take the entire interval to do one push up)
For more info on Caroline Girvan’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
