Most lifters within the gym have performed the classic flat bench press to construct chest size and upper body pressing strength. In terms of variations of this time-honored exercise, most lifters adjust the angle to focus on the “upper chest” using an incline press or deal with the “lower pecs” with a decline bench.
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Nonetheless, many individuals overlook a highly effective adjustment right at their fingertips, literally. By moving your hand position barely inward, you switch the chest-building flat bench press into the triceps-building close-grip bench press.
This changes the training stimulus and emphasizes the tricep muscles, increases the movement’s range of motion, and still builds serious upper body pressing power. Here’s every little thing it’s good to find out about getting began with this straightforward movement for size and strength.
The right way to Do the Close-Grip Bench Press
The close-grip bench press biases the triceps muscles with specific exercise performance and an extended range of motion. As its name implies, the close-grip bench press requires your hands to be closer than during a typical bench press. This increases the range of motion and puts your elbows through more elbow flexion and extension, which emphasizes your triceps over your chest.
Step 1 — Set Up on the Bench
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Lie down on a flat bench. Push your feet into the ground to slip yourself up the bench until your eye are under the barbell. Pull your shoulders down and back. Place your hands across the bar in a pronated (palm down) grip together with your hands near shoulder-width apart. (1)
The essential technique should almost equivalent to your standard flat bench press setup. The first difference is that your hands should now be at the very least one fist-width (4 to 6 inches) closer than the chest-focused exercise. This is important for recruiting more triceps into the movement.
Form Tip: While a comparatively close grip is essential, taking an excessively close grip will be counterproductive, creating more joint strain and fewer muscular stress. Some old fashioned lifters consider your thumbs should have the opportunity to the touch in the course of the close-grip bench press. That is inaccurate, impractical, and inefficient advice. Having your hands roughly consistent with your shoulders shall be effective for the vast majority of lifters.
Step 2 — Unrack the Bar
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Fill your belly and chest with a deep breath and lift the bar from the support pins. Maintain full body tension out of your flat feet through your core to your shoulders.
With stiff arms, guide the bar forward until it’s over your shoulders. Keep your shoulders pinched back to interact your upper back for support.
Form Tip: The bar should feel balanced when it settles into the best position. In the event you feel such as you’re “fighting” an unstable weight above your body, it’s either still too far above your face or too far toward your abs. Control the load and reach a robust, stable position before lowering the load.
Step 3 — Lower the Bar
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Lower the bar toward your torso, keeping your elbows stacked under your wrists. This position keeps your tricep under tension, avoids compensation from the deltoids (shoulders), and minimizes strain in your joints.
Keep your elbows near your ribs. In the event that they begin to flare out to the edges, tuck them back in toward your body. Bring the bar down as near your body as your mobility allows, ideally reaching near your sternum and lower chest.
Form Tip: Don’t allow your wrists to bend back throughout the rep. Keep your knuckles facing the ceiling. This can keep your wrists in a more favorable, less stressful position. It also helps to maintain your wrists stacked above your elbows, which is a more powerful pressing position than falling out of line.
Step 4 — Press to the Starting Position
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After reaching your maximum comfortable depth, press the bar as much as its starting position. Keep your feet flat on the ground and feel total-body engagement. Maintain a neutral wrist position above your elbows.
The bar should find yourself balanced directly over your shoulders, in the identical position it was in after being unracked.
Form Tip: Because the target of the exercise is to challenge the triceps, actively squeeze your triceps within the locked out position before performing the subsequent repetition.
Close-Grip Bench Press Mistakes to Avoid
There are multiple mistakes that may occur within the close-grip bench press because this free weight exercise has many variables that have to be controlled by the lifter.
In contrast, certain machine exercises can lock you into pre-determined positions that don’t offer as much positional selection. In other words, manipulating a barbell requires more focus and more muscular control than the same machine movement. Here’s what to look at out for during this exercise.
Elbows Flaring Out
This might be probably the most common mistake people make when doing any triceps exercise. Your elbows must track under your wrists to emphasise the lengthening of the muscle in the course of the eccentric, or lowering phase, of the repetition.
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When your elbows flare out to the edges, your shoulders are more strongly contracted, which reduces the load on the triceps.
Avoid it: Use a slow tempo when bringing the bar down toward your chest. Take three seconds to lower the load and focus controlling your elbow angle. Keep your elbows forward toward your feet moderately than out to the side. When you’ve practiced and feel comfortable, step by step increase the bar speed to some extent wherein you’re capable of control your elbow position throughout the whole movement.
Gripping Too Narrow or Too Wide
In case your grip is simply too narrow, your elbows will likely flare out excessively, forcing your deltoids to contribute more to the movement. A too-narrow grip position can even contribute to internal rotation of the shoulder which, over time, may increase the danger of injury to the supraspinatus muscle of the shoulder joint.
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Nonetheless, a grip that’s too wide will be just as counterproductive, by decreasing the demand on the triceps and increasing chest recruitment. An in depth-grip bench press with out a close grip is a plain old bench press.
Avoid it: Research has shown that the optimal grip for a close-grip bench press is the similar to the gap between the acromion (periphery) of your shoulder blades.(2) In the course of the setup phase of the exercise, place your hands shoulder-distance apart together with your wrists, elbows, and shoulders in a straight line. This can create a customized grip as everyone has a singular shoulder width, moderately than telling every lifter in every gym to arbitrarily set their hands 18 inches apart, for instance.
Inefficient Bar Path
It will be important to do not forget that the bar path within the bench press shouldn’t be a strictly vertical line. The bar begins over your shoulders and can travel down and barely forward because it’s lowered, in a slight arc-like path.
In comparison with the usual bench press, the close-grip bench press has an increased range of motion and can due to this fact have a distinct touch-point on the body and a distinct bar path than the usual bench press.
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It will be important to do not forget that the bar will touch lower in your chest in a close-grip bench than a typical bench press. In the event you try to use the identical touch-point for each movements, it’ll result in excessive elbow flare to compensate for the inefficient motion.
Avoid it: Aim for the bar to the touch across the narrowing point of the underside of your sternum — the xiphoid process. Nonetheless, the precise spot will vary barely from individual to individual based on their arm length, ribcage size, and overall body position.
How to Progress the Close-Grip Bench Press
As a basic barbell exercise, the close-grip bench press will be adapted to suit a big selection of lifters’ capabilities with progressively heavier weights. Nonetheless, if individuals cannot yet manage a full range of motion with the barbell, there are a number of options to assist achieve the exercise.
Close-Grip Floor Press
The ground press variation reinforces the identical close-grip setup and general bar path with a reduced range of motion. While one advantage of the close-grip bench press (performed on a flat bench) is a comparatively long range of motion, this floor press variation eliminates the lower portion of the exercise. This reduces shoulder strain while maintaining muscular stress on the triceps.
The close-grip floor press means that you can develop into aware of the grip width and hand position, and encourages proper form while staying tight and controlling the movement. Don’t allow your elbows to rest on the bottom.
Paused Close-Grip Bench Press
By incorporating a deliberate, long pause at the underside and top of every repetition, you reinforce proper mechanics throughout the movement. Pause in the underside, stretched position of each rep for 2 seconds. It’s crucial that you simply maintain tension and don’t chill out with the bar resting in your chest. Your muscles ought to be tight and engaged for the duration.
Press normally and hold the locked out position for 2 seconds. Again, don’t treat the pause as a possibility for rest. Grip the bar hard, flex your triceps, and have interaction your core before lowering the load again.
Advantages of the Close-Grip Bench Press
The close-grip bench press has multiple advantages, from performance to aesthetics and even longevity in barbell training. Here’s why you need to incorporate this convenient movement.
Strength and Performance
For powerlifters or gym-goers trying to increase their max bench press, the close-grip bench press has specific advantages with direct carryover to your bench. In the event you struggle specifically at lockout, you likely need to enhance your triceps strength.
The close-grip bench press primarily challenges the triceps, resulting in greater pressing strength.(3) This straightforward exercise variation may very well be what’s missing out of your training routine to push through your sticking point and reach a latest bench press PR.
Muscle-Constructing and Aesthetics
Filling out the sleeves of a shirt is rarely a foul idea. While triceps dips and pushdowns challenge the lateral head of the triceps particularly, the close-grip bench press significantly recruits the medial and lateral head, resulting in more well-rounded muscular development.
This compound (multi-joint) movement also has an increased effect on muscle hypertrophy since it means that you can use relatively heavy weights, which will be useful for exciting growth.(4)
Joint Health
In the event you consistently train using a limited range of motion for any muscle or exercise, you possibly can develop strength in that range. Nonetheless, this can even create a greater risk for strains and tears when those muscles are put through a greater range of motion with “fully lengthened” or “fully shortened” positions. (5)
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The close-grip bench press does challenge a greater range of motion than the usual grip attributable to the positioning of the hands on the bar. The shoulder joints are worked through an extended distance. This can stress the triceps within the lengthened ranges, making them more robust and comparatively less liable to injury.
Muscles Worked by the Close-Grip Bench Press
The close-grip bench press is mostly known for difficult the triceps muscles, nevertheless there are more muscles involved than chances are you’ll think.
Pectorals Major and Minor
The pectoralis major and pectoralis minor are your chest muscles and, while they are usually not the most important contributors to the close-grip bench press, they do play a very important role within the movement. During each the concentric (lifting) and eccentric (lowering) phases, each the pec major and minor are recruited to lift the load and push your arms upward.
Anterior Deltoid
Your shoulder is comprised of three separate heads — the front (anterior), side (lateral), and rear (posterior). Each helps to boost the arm in its respective direction out of your body’s midline. The anterior deltoid, specifically, contributes to raising and lowering your upper arm in the course of the close-grip bench press.
Nonetheless, remember that in case your anterior deltoid is fatiguing before other muscles groups in the course of the exercise, your elbows are likely flaring an excessive amount of. Adjusting your grip and/or bar path should ensure maximum deal with your triceps.
Triceps Brachii
Your triceps make up the vast majority of your upper arm, relative to your biceps. The triceps muscle consists of three heads — the lateral, medial, and long head — and together their primary motion is to increase the arm from a bent elbow position to full to elbow extension. The triceps contraction is emphasized within the lockout of the exercise where the triceps are more strongly recruited.
The right way to Program the Close-Grip Bench Press
When programming the close-grip bench press, the primary consideration must be your goal. Essentially the most effective approach shall be determined by what you ought to achieve with the movement and the way it matches into your overall training plan.
Strength
To prioritize strength-building, reps must be kept in a comparatively lower range while working with higher percentages of your one-repetition max (1RM). Train with two to 6 sets of 1 to 5 reps, using 80 to 95% of 1RM.
The quantity of sets can vary based in your experience, conditioning, and skills. More shouldn’t be at all times higher when you can’t handle it. No matter your total training volume, deal with using a quick bar speed and fully locking out each repetition.
Hypertrophy
Using moderate to high sets with moderate to higher reps will provide a greater hypertrophy adaptation. For muscle growth to occur, the muscle needs stimulus, volume, and fatigue.(6) Work with three to 6 sets eight to twenty repetitions, using of 55-65% of 1RM.
The goal is to succeed in muscular fatigue at the tip of every set. In the event you’re performing more triceps-focused exercises in the identical workout, use fewer sets and reps. If the close-grip bench press is your primary triceps exercise, give it the upper end of the workload.
Close-Grip Bench Press Variations
Beyond the close-grip bench press itself, there are some variations you possibly can implement for comparable advantages of hypertrophy and improving your pressing power.
Banded Close-Grip Bench Press
To extend pressing power and/or improve your lockout ability, adding resistance bands of varied tension to the close-grip bench press will challenge upper range of motion. Resistance bands offer accommodating resistance — they get tougher as they’re stretched farther and offer relatively less resistance before they’re maximally stretched.
The biomechanics of the bench press, the lockout position requires less energy and advantages from a leverage advantage. As your elbows develop into more prolonged, the load feels “lighter.” Bands require you to use maximum tension as resistance increases toward the highest position, forcing a stronger contraction. Because the bar travels upward, band tension increases on the lockout. This forces you to consciously produce more power and drive hard to realize lockout.
Machine Press
This is a wonderful variation for hypertrophy goals. Using any machine that mimics the same arrange because the close-grip bench gives you more options for hypertrophy. The design of machines allows lifters to efficiently incorporate quite a lot of high-intensity techniques for increased training stimulus.
Options reminiscent of reminiscent of drop sets, partial reps, and even forced reps with a training partner allow for greater variations in your workouts. This can also be a safer option than training beyond muscular fatigue with the close-grip bench press.
Close-Grip Push-Up
This triceps-focused push-up variation is a pleasant complement to any training program, as a primary exercise or as a muscle-exhausting ending movement. Since your hands are closer together, just like the close-grip bench press, the range of motion is bigger than a typical push-up, thus making it tougher.
In the event you cannot perform a full range of motion rep out of your toes, you choose for modified versions reminiscent of a close-grip inclined push-up (together with your hands elevated on a bench) or a kneeling close-grip push up.
Ceaselessly Asked Questions
Why does the close-grip bench press hurt my shoulder?
There may very well be multiple aspects at work, but most individuals’s shoulders hurt attributable to a scarcity of stability within the upper back. This requires a greater deal with scapular retraction and depression — pulling your shoulder blades together and down.
In the course of the exercise, be sure to squeeze your shoulder blades back toward your spine and “tuck” them down toward your back pockets. This stabilizes your entire shoulder girdle to support the load. If it’s done incorrectly, or by no means, your anterior deltoid is more strongly activated as your shoulder goes into protraction (reaching forward) and elevation (shrugging as much as your ears).
Quite a lot of upper back strengthening exercises and mobility drills can assist, together with drilling proper pressing technique and cueing your upper back stabilizers before unracking the bar.
What alternative can I do if I don’t have a bench?
Any exercise that challenges your upper body pressing muscles in a supine position will be an efficient alternative. In the event you don’t have a bench but can lie on the ground, that is an ideal alternative. A dumbbell or barbell floor press is an ideal exercise every time a bench is unavailable. The deal with the upper half of the range of motion further emphasizes triceps recruitment.
Most industrial gyms have steps, boxes, and risers that will be used as modified bench. Ideally, you would like the improvised bench to be the identical height as a typical one. Place a yoga mat on top of the step or box to cut back the danger of your torso slipping off.
Get a Grip on Your Bench
The close-grip bench press will be performed either as an assistance exercise to spice up your classic bench press or it might probably be approached as a primary movement by itself to develop a stronger upper body. The added arm size is an incidental bonus. Apply this straightforward grip adjustment to a time-tested movement and also you’ll soon welcome latest levels of size and strength.
References
- Lockie, Robert & Moreno, Matthew. (2017). The Close-Grip Bench Press. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 39. 1. 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000307.
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Larsen, S., Gomo, O., & van den Tillaar, R. (2021). A Biomechanical Evaluation of Wide, Medium, and Narrow Grip Width Effects on Kinematics, Horizontal Kinetics, and Muscle Activity on the Sticking Region in Recreationally Trained Males During 1-RM Bench Pressing. Frontiers in sports and energetic living, 2, 637066. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2020.637066
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Saeterbakken, A. H., Stien, N., Pedersen, H., Solstad, T., Cumming, K. T., & Andersen, V. (2021). The Effect of Grip Width on Muscle Strength and Electromyographic Activity in Bench Press amongst Novice- and Resistance-Trained Men. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(12), 6444. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126444
- Brandão, Lucas & Painelli, Vitor & Lasevicius, Thiago & Silva-Batista, Carla & Brendon, Helderson & Schoenfeld, Brad & Aihara, Andre & Cardoso, Fabiano & Peres, Bergson & Teixeira, Emerson. (2020). Various the Order of Mixtures of Single- and Multi-Joint Exercises Differentially Affects Resistance Training Adaptations. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 34. 1. 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003550.
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Valamatos, M. J., Tavares, F., Santos, R. M., Veloso, A. P., & Mil-Homens, P. (2018). Influence of full range of motion vs. equalized partial range of motion training on muscle architecture and mechanical properties. European journal of applied physiology, 118(9), 1969–1983. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-3932-x
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Mangine, G. T., Hoffman, J. R., Gonzalez, A. M., Townsend, J. R., Wells, A. J., Jajtner, A. R., Beyer, K. S., Boone, C. H., Miramonti, A. A., Wang, R., LaMonica, M. B., Fukuda, D. H., Ratamess, N. A., & Stout, J. R. (2015). The effect of coaching volume and intensity on improvements in muscular strength and size in resistance-trained men. Physiological reports, 3(8), e12472. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.12472
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