Try This One-Move Triceps Workout From The Rock’s Trainer To Build Bigger Arms

Man doing a dumbbell arm workout at the gym
(Image credit: Getty Images)

When Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson needs to build a physique worthy of the silver screen, he turns to professional bodybuilder Dave Rienzi—and now you can too. 

Rienzi, known for getting Hollywood A-listers including Johnson of Black Adam fame and Superman’s Henry Cavill into shape, recently shared this triceps workout on Instagram. 

Surprisingly Rienzi's routine only involves one move—the triceps kick-back—repeated 64 times, to conjure up larger arm muscle. You can use a dumbbell if you want to try this at home, but Rienzi’s weapon of choice is the cable machine

Perform eight reps with a three-second eccentric, or lowering, phase for each (an example of tempo training) to boost your triceps’ time under tension. Once completed, switch arms and repeat with no rest in between. Keep alternating until you’ve finished four sets on each arm for 64 reps in total. 

Watch Dave Rienzi's One-Move Triceps Workout

If you’re tight on time you can use this quick sequence as a standalone session, although Rienzi recommends “adding it to your next triceps workout”. By extension, it will also work as a fiery finisher after a push day, if you partake in a push-pull workout plan

The first advantage of this workout is obvious: aesthetics. You will accumulate a shed load of volume and time under tension in a short amount of time, providing the hypertrophy training hit that your muscles need to grow (provided you’re fueling yourself with the right nutrients and, of course, plenty of protein). 

Yet, an enhanced arm diameter isn’t the only reason to give your triceps some love. Strengthening these muscles will also have plenty of carry-over for other push-focused compound exercises, like the bench press, overhead press and even Olympic weightlifting

In short, we think this time-savvy triceps blast is well worth adding to your arm training repertoire. Go on, bigger arms and a bench PB await. Just make sure you support your body's recovery with some of the best protein powders

You can get all the protein you need through your diet, but if you're in need of a top-up, these powders include all the nutrients you need to ease the delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) you'll absolutely feel after this intense one-move workout.

Harry Bullmore
Staff writer

Harry covers news, reviews and features for Coach, Fit&Well and Live Science. With over a decade of training experience, he has tried everything from powerlifting to gymnastics, cardio to CrossFit, all in a bid to find fun ways of building a healthy, functional body.