Llewellin shares his high-intensity secrets for swelling up his tri’s

June 14, 2011

FLEXONLINE.COM

His last names makes it look like our “L” key sticks, but it actually testifies to the Welsh heritage of James Llewellin. He’s been overshadowed by his fellow Welshman Flex Lewis, who preceded him by one year as the British Championships overall winner (Lewis in ‘07 and Llewellin in ‘08) and has enjoyed greater success in the 202 class. Still, Llewellin deserves his own spotlight. He missed qualifying for the Olympia 202 Showdown by one place last year (a fourth at the Orlando Show of Champions 202) and qualified this year with a third in the British Grand Prix 202. Llewellin’s upper body is especially strong, so we got him to share his high-intensity secrets for swelling up his tri’s.

LLEWELLIN’S TRI TIPS

* “I rarely train triceps now, because they’re a strength. But this routine is the one I did when I made my best gains. I liked to train tri’s after chest, and I would sometimes also do an additional workout where I supersetted bi’s with tri’s.”

* “On Smith incline close-grips, it’s really important that the elbows are kept out wide and in line with the bar. It’ll feel strange at first, but the pump is awesome.”

* “Both the pushdowns and the extensions are done with cambered bars.”

* “Working sets are to failure. The final sets of the first two exercises are drop sets, typically going from eight reps to six reps to four reps.”

JAMES LLEWELLIN’S TRICEPS ROUTINE

EXERCISE WARMUPS SETS REPS
Reverse pushdowns 2 2 12, 8-6-4
Smith machine incline 1 2 12, 8-6-4
   close-grip presses
Seated triceps extensions 2 1 12*

* Plus three forced reps.