Gironda was a clever guy...nasty but smart. Gym was primitive but effective. Larry Scott was his most successful member. Larry gave a seminar at our gym in 1979. It was the best seminar a champion has given at our gym and that includes, Arnold, Franco, Sergio, Ray Mentzer and Lance Dreher.
Larry used the lying triceps extension that was very popular in the seventies. They had a primitive version of a machine at Nailon's Gym at Randwick. We all liked that machine but were limited by the amount of weight that could be used. When I started making gym equipment at a factory I had a go at building a lying triceps machine. I modified it and eventually got things right. You could adjust the height of the bench, the length of the user, and the width of space between the pads. I installed pads to prevent the elbows from going sideways during the movement. Also, on one machine you could change the height of the pulley. Larry figured the pulley should be about 5 feet off the floor. That is where I started. I think the ideal spot is a bit higher. Well, what happens is that there isn't much resistance when you complete the extension. So having the pulley a bit higher made it harder to finish the movement which helps make it more effective.
One of the problems with the lying triceps extension is that your palms are pronated and this eventually puts too much stress on some of the forearm muscles that end up sore. The solution is to do the movement with hands facing each other. You can do that on the modified Nautilus Triceps Machine. You do the movement like a Karate chop and remove the pronated position. I use this machine all the
time for triceps. Just this one machine and my triceps have never been bigger.
Larry Scott had some awesome training techniques and had a training newsletter for years teaching them. He probably got most of the ideas from Gironda.
