Most people who include skull crushers in their training routine probably do so with bulging triceps in mind. They may have heard or even found this the best way to isolate and train the muscle that adds size and bulk to the upper arms if developed properly.
And while there are certainly grounds for including this triceps exercise in any routine that focuses on individual body parts—like any weight, it will need to get heavier in time and thus becomes more difficult to get into position by yourself.
There’s also a lot of pressure on the elbows with this exercise for many lifters, which is why sooner or later, they have to start looking for alternatives as the weight increases. It could even be that you find another technique feels better on your elbows or allows a better triceps pump.
Any stress on your joints is more varied this way, which tends to be good for their longevity. On top of that, you stimulate the triceps muscles in slightly different ways, which is another good thing for consistent and ongoing muscle growth.
What Muscles Do Skull Crushers Work?
The triceps are the main portion of the arm utilized in the skull crusher movement. And as you might gather from the name, this is a 3-pointed muscle with a long head originating just above the shoulder joint on the scapula. The medial and lateral heads originate at the back of the upper humerus and terminate behind the elbow.
The function of the triceps is to extend the elbow and assist in extending the shoulder. This is an abductive muscle (a movement that pushes), so any exercise meant to train it will involve abductive movements.
What Other Exercises are Effective at Working These Muscles?
If you haven’t found the skull crusher to be your ideal exercise for one reason or another, you might consider a spot of trial and error with a few other similar moves. Similar as they are not quite the same, they will work the same target muscle groups to some degree.
To understand the dynamics of this particular muscle, let’s consider the long head of your triceps, which requires extension-type exercises to be activated fully.
Dips, for instance, work the triceps but cause the shoulder to flex, as with other pressing movements. This means the long head of the triceps interferes somewhat with the movement and thus doesn’t fully engage.
Try some of these alternatives:
- Overhead Extensions: assuming you have no issues with shoulder mobility or elbow pain, overhead extensions will train your triceps similarly but with more of a stretch, which should theoretically stimulate more muscle growth.
- Triceps Pushdowns: your elbows will prefer triceps pushdowns if you have any issues with them. They won’t necessarily work the muscles through as deep of a stretch, but they are lighter on the elbows.
- The Close-Grip Bench Press: the close-grip bench press isn’t quite as effective at stimulating the triceps heads as the skull crusher, but again this one is even easier on the elbow joints.
- The Diamond Pushup: the ultimate push-up for isolating the triceps using the body’s weight squarely behind it. Try it with the feet at different widths.
- The Extended Arm Diamond Pushup: the closest thing to the dynamics of a skull crusher using the body weight alone. Certainly, more of the other stabilizing muscles will need to be bought into play with this one, but you can achieve the ‘upward’ pushing motion similar to that on the skull crusher if the arms are far out enough in front of you. A strong and tight core is a must; this exercise may expose a few weaknesses you hadn’t considered.
The Bottom Line
Skull crushers are a solid isolation exercise for the triceps that allow you to push a lot of weight through a deep range of motion. This is why they’re typically considered one of the best exercises for developing the triceps.
But with that said, and also bearing in mind that variety is the spice of any progressive and consistent program, some alternatives will allow you to train the same muscles to a similar level of intensity. Some of these can be done, as we have seen, without the need for any additional equipment, and these may even turn out to prove invaluable additions to your arsenal of exercises.
So if you are happy with your skull crushers, stick with them—but don’t forget to vary things as and when you can. And if this exercise is just not for you, there are plenty of alternatives to be trial and error until you find the ones that work best for you, which will likely be something of a mix in the long run—at least for the sake of motivation and longevity in your training.
