Exercise #2 - Cable Cross-Over
Lateral Extensions

This exercise is going to target the long head of the triceps, which runs directly down the back of the arm. It's the largest of the three heads of the tricep muscle (tri=three...cep=head) and it's also target #1 for women looking to tighten up that "batwing" thing.

Naturally, if you've got a lot of extra fat under your skin contributing to that flapping, no amount of direct tricep work is going to help - you need to work on getting rid of that as well. But if fat is not the problem, this exercise CAN definitely make a difference.

The long head of the tricep makes up the back half of that horseshoe shape, in addition to a good chunk of the overall mass of the tricep itself.

Set up a fairly light weight on this one the first time you do it, until you get the idea of how the exercise is done...you can always increase the weight in the next set once you get an idea of how much you're able to work with.

Grab the LEFT pulley handle with your RIGHT hand then step over and grab the RIGHT pulley with your LEFT hand. The cables will be crossing up right in front of your face.

Your hands will be beside your head - this start position actually looks like a bicep pose.

Now, keeping your upper arms horizontal (parallel to the ground), extend outwards and a little bit behind you, bringing the handles wide and to the sides.

Try to imagine as you push those handles down and back that somebody is pushing a giant ball into your back that's pushing your chest forward as you're wrapping your arms around that ball.

Because not only are you trying to extend directly out to the sides, in this arm position that small bit of backwards tension also helps to involve the lateral head of the triceps (the other part of that horseshoe).

This extra squeeze will really help bring out the definition in your arms.

Repeat for 10 to 12 reps, squeezing the triceps HARD at the bottom of each rep.

If you don't have a full cable cross-over machine, you can also do this one on a single cable machine...even on the lat pulldown machine!

Just hook a single handle on and grab the pulley with your right hand with your left side towards the stack. The exercise is performed exactly the same way - just done one arm at a time, without two cable crossing in front of you.