How to do skull crushers

Skull crushers target your triceps, elbows, and shoulders. Form tips: Focus on hinging at the elbows, versus the shoulder. Start with the weights straight above your body, then only hinge at the elbows. Keep your triceps steady as you bend and extend, really isolating them.

Muscles Worked

The skull crusher is a single-joint exercise that specially targets the triceps. Unlike other triceps movements, like close-grip bench press and dips, which recruit multiple muscles, the skull crusher primarily hits the triceps.

Bodyweight Skull Crushers

You can do a skull crusher with just your body weight. First, set up in a plank position with your hands together. Then contract your triceps and push your body off the ground and slightly backward. Return to the plank position and repeat!

The skull crusher is an isolation movement, which many people take to mean that it’s not a mass-builder.

That’s why doing skull crushers (and other triceps extension variations) combined with pressing movements helps us build bigger arms and get more balanced muscle growth. And, because skull crushers are also great for your short and medial heads, they can still increase your bench press strength.

#3 – Skull Crushers – Lying Tricep Extensions

Unfortunately during fatigue the muscles can sometimes give out causing a sudden collapse of the bar that could hit or crush your face or skull. Make sure you have a spotter to help protect you and be careful not to “tip the Titanic” using too much weight.

Beware: They May Destroy Your Elbows

Besides dips (which are a well known shoulder killer), there is no other exercise I can think of for any body part that is as well known for causing elbow pain as skull crushers are. It’s just one of those exercises that tends to hurt for a lot of people.

Aim to add the skull crusher exercise into your routine every other day. If you’re hoping to build muscle endurance you may want to try 3 sets of 20 reps. However, for strength, you’ll need to up the weight and try 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps.

Elbows Tight

It’s common for people to let their elbows flare out as they’re doing skull crushers; avoid this. That’s a good way to injure your shoulders and it also takes emphasis off your triceps, diminishing the effectiveness of the move.

Based on an average weight lifted of 23.2 lbs for all MyFit users we suggest you start at 50% of that weight: Try 12 lbs and aim for 12-15 reps.

Skull crushers are one of the biggest moves you can do for the triceps. Or you could put triceps in your push day workouts if you follow a push/pull/legs split. This would mean you’ll put skull crushers into the same workout as bench press and other chest exercises, plus overhead press and other shoulder work.

In the “push” workout you train all the upper body pushing muscles, i.e. the chest, shoulders and triceps. In the “pull” workout you train all the upper body pulling muscles, i.e. the back and biceps.

Benefits. The skull crusher is a push exercise that works the triceps brachii in isolation. It works this muscle from the elbow up to the latissimus dorsi of the back.

Because the triceps are a relatively small muscle group, the dip exercise is most appropriate for advanced lifters. Beginners through advanced lifters can perform the skull crusher exercise because of the unlimited range of resistance options.

#1 – Don’t go too heavy or perform low reps.

Skull crushers are anything but a “power” exercise, and if you start bouncing the weight up and down using excessive amounts of resistance, you’re just begging to injure your elbows in the process.

Skullcrushers are one of those very effective exercise but they are not required, as long as you are targeting your triceps somehow.