Tricep Rope

The tricep rope is that nylon attachment you find hooked to the high cable in practically every gym. It's made up of a braided cord, a central carabiner to hook it to the pulley, and two rubber (or plastic) end knobs that keep the hands from slipping off.

Its advantage over the straight bar or the V-bar is freedom of movement. With the rope, you can spread your hands apart in the final phase of the push down, fully extending the elbows and adding a pronation component that maximally activates the lateral head of the triceps. This hand separation at the end of the movement is impossible with any rigid bar.

The most common exercise is the cable push down: grip the rope with a neutral grip, elbows pinned to the sides, and push down while spreading the ends apart at the bottom. But the rope is versatile: you can also use it for overhead extensions (low cable, pulled behind the head), face pulls for the rear delts, hammer curls and cable crunches.

A practical tip: if the rope at your gym is too short and limits the range of motion, try using two ropes hooked together. The extra length allows wider spread and a better peak contraction. The standard length is around 70 cm, but longer models reach 90-100 cm.