Close grip bench press. We study all the subtleties and secrets. Bench press with a narrow grip: technique and recommendations Bench press with a narrow grip - what rocks

The close-grip bench press focuses on the mid-pectoral muscles and triceps. The front deltoids receive a small load. Sometimes, when performing an exercise, if the distance between the hands is very small, pain may occur in the wrists - this depends on the type of structure of the limbs. If this happens, increase the distance between your palms.

Close-grip barbell press lying on a horizontal bench

Lie down on a flat bench and grab the barbell with a shoulder-width or slightly narrower grip. Arms are fully straightened. There is a deflection in the lower back. The legs rest firmly on the floor. Slowly, as you inhale, begin to lower the barbell, pointing your elbows along your torso. Lower the barbell until it touches your lower chest and press it up powerfully.

Please note: in order for the triceps to work, you must lower the barbell to the very bottom of your chest. The elbows must go along the body. At the top of the movement, fully straighten your arms for maximum triceps contraction. On inhalation - smoothly down, on exhalation - powerfully up.

Do not lift your pelvis off the bench, this is dangerous for the spine. Do not use a grip that is too narrow; this is detrimental to the wrist joints. Do not spread your elbows to the sides, otherwise the load will go to the pectoral muscles. Avoid using an open grip to avoid the hassle of the bar falling onto your chest.

Bench press with close grip while lying on an incline bench

Lie down on an incline bench and grab the barbell with a shoulder-width or slightly narrower grip. Arms are fully straightened. There is a deflection in the lower back. The legs rest firmly on the floor. Slowly, as you inhale, begin to lower the barbell, pointing your elbows along your torso. Lower the barbell until it touches your lower chest and press it up powerfully.

In bodybuilding, the close-grip bench press is one of the basic and most popular movements for pumping up the triceps. The narrow press provides a powerful workout and is ideal for increasing size and strength of the triceps brachii muscle.

Pros and cons of the exercise

The close-grip press has an impressive number of advantages and a few disadvantages that are worth considering. This will help you get the most out of the exercise and make the triceps bench press truly effective.

Main advantages:

The close-grip barbell press is considered the most effective and basic basic movement for working the triceps. Despite the enormous benefits The exercise also has a number of disadvantages:

• When performing bench triceps barbell presses, any limiting muscle area (such as weak hands) will reduce the weight used and the load on the target area.
• A number of studies show that it is practically not included in the work when performing a barbell press with a narrow grip in a conventional technique.

This does not allow us to perceive the close-grip triceps press as an exercise for developing all the bundles. Therefore, it must be supplemented with other movements in which the main load is on the long head (for example,).

What muscles work

With a narrow grip, the following are involved:

• Triceps.
• (middle part).

Auxiliary zones:

• (mostly static).
• and (responsible for stabilizing the body and arms).

A huge contribution to the study of the effectiveness of the close-grip triceps bench press was made by the research of Professor Kawakami, one of the leading researchers in the world. A three-month experiment showed which muscles work in a close-grip barbell press. It turned out that the long head (the most massive and determines the volume of the muscle) practically does not work in this movement. This also affects her hypertrophy, which in the close-grip triceps barbell press was practically zero, against the backdrop of the progression of other beams.

Close-grip barbell press technique

Despite the fact that the technique of performing a triceps press with a narrow grip is quite simple, its perfect mastery is mandatory. This is where athletes of any level should start before progressing and increasing the weight of the weight.

Classic close grip bench press technique:

1. Lie down on a bench, pressing your pelvis, shoulder blades and back of your head tightly against it. Take the bar so that there is a distance of 26-30 cm between your hands (22-25 for women).
2. Remove the bar from the supports and hold it above your chest. Begin to lower the barbell slowly and under control to your lower chest.
3. Without pausing, push the weight upward with a more powerful movement.

The position of your elbows partially influences which muscles are worked.

• Partial elbow extension can slightly increase the load on the long head, but this technique is considered too traumatic and therefore is not used in sports.
• Your forearms should “go” down perpendicular to the floor.
• Also, at the top point, it is forbidden to fully extend the elbows; to avoid stress on the joint, it is necessary to maintain minimal bending in the joint.

Smith machine close grip press

Performing the Smith close-grip press can be a good alternative not only for beginners, but also for advanced athletes. This option is well suited for overcoming stagnation. Also, the exercise allows you to reduce the load on some muscles, thereby increasing the quality of triceps work.

Technically, this version is no different from working with a free barbell, but the following should be taken into account: peculiarities:

• It is important to lie down correctly on the bench and position the bench so that the secured bar falls to the lower part of the chest. To do this, it is always recommended to perform the first test set without additional weight.
• In this option, the maximum possible weight of the projectile will be higher than when working with a free barbell (this is facilitated by a fixed bar). This should be taken into account for the correct load of the target zone.

How to replace the exercise

Theoretically, the close-grip flat bench press can be replaced with any other basic movement:

• Press a dumbbell or kettlebell using a similar technique (replacing the apparatus).
• (hands are placed closer to each other).

However, such a “replacement” should be considered in the context of introducing variety into training and working the muscle from different angles. In terms of effectiveness for the shoulder girdle and triceps, the exercise is still one of the leaders, so its exclusion from the program is not recommended. The only actual cause may be injuries (for example, in the hand area), which do not allow technically correct execution of all elements of the movement.

This is a basic exercise that initially involves the use of heavy weights, since the load falls on a large number of muscles at the same time. It is impossible to target the triceps in this movement. For this, isolation exercises, such as others, are used.

Given the use of large weights and the effectiveness of working with weights in the range of 55-80% of 1RM, the number of repetitions per set should not be large.

• To develop strength, it is recommended to perform 4-6 repetitions.
• For the purpose of maximum hypertrophy - from 7 to 10.

Excellent results are demonstrated (a partner is needed to throw the pancakes), forced repetitions and failure approaches. These techniques help create maximum stress and the subsequent anabolic response.

An important aspect is to draw up a program in such a way that the day of the arms does not overlap with the day of working on the chest. An excess of the same type of movements can negatively affect the growth of muscle mass throughout the shoulder girdle.

Close-grip bench press technique in video format

The close grip bench press is a basic exercise for building overall muscle mass in the triceps. The anterior deltoids and pectoral muscles are involved as auxiliary muscle groups.

This exercise should be used as the main one in triceps training, along with dips for triceps. The press involves working with a lot of weight, so it should be performed at the beginning of your workout, while you are still full of strength and energy.

Technique:

To perform close-grip presses, it is most convenient to use a bench press bench.

• Set the bar to a weight that is 30-40% less than your bench press weight.
• Lie down on the bench so that the bar is in front of your eyes.
• Grasp the barbell with a shoulder-width grip.
• Remove the bar from the racks and fix it at the top point.
• Keep your elbows close to your body.
• As you inhale, bend your elbows, lowering the barbell to the bottom of your pectoral muscles.
• As you exhale, press the barbell away from you. Do not spread your elbows to the sides. Move them parallel to your body.
• At the top point, do not fully extend your arms to maintain tension in the muscles.
• Take a break.
• Lower the barbell to your chest again.
• Do the required number of repetitions (8-10).

Grip

The grip should be shoulder-width apart or slightly narrower. Many beginner athletes make the mistake of using a very narrow grip to perform the press. Not only does this not improve the quality of the exercise, but it also creates additional breaking stress on the wrists, especially at the bottom of the movement.

Such a grip can lead to injury. Also, if you constantly perform the exercise with a very narrow grip, your hands will gradually begin to hurt without any load. This way you will create a problem for yourself for the rest of your life.

Errors

The first mistake was mentioned above - the wrong grip.

Second common mistake When performing bench presses with a narrow grip, the trajectory of movement is incorrect. Many people lower the barbell too high on their chest, to the level of the middle or even the top of the pectoral muscles. With such an amplitude of movement, part of the load leaves the triceps and is distributed between the anterior bundles of deltoid muscles and pectoral muscles.

The bar should descend to the solar plexus area and rise straight up. In this case, the deltoids and pectorals will be excluded from work as much as possible.

Another mistake that many people make due to ignorance of the methods of using a particular exercise is the incorrect use of narrow-grip presses. some athletes try to use this exercise to work the inner parts of the pectoral muscles.

In accordance with the technique of performing the exercise, most of the load falls on the triceps. A small part remains on the pectoral muscles, which is not able to give any result. To work out the inner part of the pectoral muscles, you need to use information in the simulator or dumbbell flyes while lying down.

Tricks

In order to give the triceps maximum load, you need to turn off your legs and back from the work. To do this, you need to put your feet on the bench. The only disadvantage will be the difficulty of maintaining balance. Therefore, you first need to remove the barbell from the racks and fix it at the top point, and only then lift your legs onto the bench.

For convenience and variety of training, you can use not only a straight bar, but also an EZ bar. However, in this case, you will have to throw it back to its original position, since the stands for bench presses are too wide and it is unlikely to be possible to place a curved bar on them.

Close grip bench press video

Video: Close-grip bench press

Close grip bench press

The close-grip barbell press is one of the basic exercises in bodybuilding. It is used by athletes with extensive experience; it is better to include the bench press in the program through training. For a high-quality effect, you need to perform 4 approaches, 10-12 repetitions in one approach.

The close-grip barbell press is performed by both women and men. This type of bench press differs from the classic exercise; a much larger number of muscles are involved here.

When performed correctly, it works the triceps of the arm and shoulder, pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, elbow muscles, subscapularis and latissimus dorsi.

The exercise can be called universal, since basically any press affects the chest and some parts of the arms. Of course, the back muscles are also involved, but the effect that a narrow grip gives is very difficult to achieve with other equipment. With a narrow grip, the abdominal muscles and trapezius are also included in the work. Thus, by doing chest exercises, the athlete will be able to strengthen other parts of his body.

Since a special type of grip is used for the exercise, it is necessary to control the position of the hands. Many people believe that a narrow grip means that the hands are as close as possible, almost overlapping each other. But this opinion is wrong, and if you perform the exercise this way, you can easily and quickly get injured. Therefore, all exercises with barbells must be done in the presence of a trainer.

A narrow grip is the placement of the hands at a distance of 20-30 centimeters from each other on the bar. It is important to grasp firmly, but not to wring your hands and, feeling discomfort, grab the bar. If you don’t do this, you can damage your wrist joints and prevent yourself from working in the gym for a long time.

Since a large load falls on the hands, sports gloves or bandages should be used. Even if you don't feel pain, this will help avoid discomfort and calluses in the future.

Technique

1. The exercise is done lying down, so the bench is an important element. It must be installed in a position convenient for the athlete.
2. It is necessary to press your back, buttocks and shoulder blades against the bench, you cannot tear yourself away from it when doing the press, or arch your body. All these are safety rules, if not followed, you can cause serious injury to your back.
3. The legs should rest firmly on the floor, and they should also be spread as wide as possible.
4. As you exhale, the barbell is lifted down; after passing the most difficult part of the lift, you can inhale. At the top, you should hold your hands for at least three seconds, while additionally straining all the large and small muscles of the chest.

After exhaling, you should lower the bar to your chest and press it up again in the same mode.

To work the triceps well, trainers recommend using the bench press with a narrow grip. To the untrained eye, this exercise can easily be confused with a reverse grip barbell press or a classic bench press. But the differences are colossal, let’s see for ourselves.

Muscle work

When using a narrow grip, the load on the muscles is distributed as follows:

• Triceps (lateral, medial and long fascicles) - do the bulk of the work.
• Pectoralis major muscles - work in synergy with the triceps. When changing the grip to a wider one and moving the elbows to the sides, they take the load on themselves.
• Deltoid muscles (anterior bundle).

This exercise also works the stabilizer muscles of the body and arms. Holding the projectile with a narrow grip so that it does not wander is somewhat more difficult than with a wide one.

Homemade analogues of narrow grip bench press

The easiest way to repeat a close-grip bench press without a barbell is to do push-ups from the floor or from a horizontal pipe with your palms close to each other. In this way, you can work on your triceps outside the gym, but limiting yourself to your own body weight.

Another option is to take dumbbells, sit comfortably on an incline or horizontal bench (you can put stools in a row) and do a close-grip bench press with them. This is also a good option, however, it is quite difficult to control the movement.

And yet, it is optimal to perform the exercise with a barbell. Let's get back to it.

Place of exercise in training

On what day should you do the exercise and what kind of exercise should it be?

It all depends on your training goals:

• Typically, a triceps press is done on the day of the muscles of the same name (chest and triceps) after the classic bench press, incline press or dips.
• If you decide to devote a separate day to triceps, reducing the load on the chest, then you can start the entire workout with this exercise. Having first performed a bench press with a narrow grip, you can do a French press and extension of the arms on a block, and then finish off the muscle with curls of the arms with dumbbells behind the head.

The technique is very simple, but still requires attention. As with everything, there are nuances here.

The following restrictions can be mentioned:

• You should not do close-grip barbell lifts on shoulder day, as this can lead to shoulder injury.
• It is also not recommended to do such presses on an incline bench at an upward angle. Use only a horizontal surface or a slight negative slope.

Close-grip press techniques

In gyms you can see barbell presses with a narrow grip in different designs. Below are two options, the technique of which is different.

Triceps press

First of all, you need to prepare a place for the bench press: place the racks at the desired height, hang an empty bar for warming up.

1. Lie correctly on the bench: the pelvis, back of the head and shoulder blades should be pressed against its surface.
2. Grab the bar so that there is 25-30 cm between your hands, straight grip.
3. Straighten your arms, removing the bar from the racks. Bring it to a position so that it is against the middle of your chest.
4. As you begin to lower the weight to your chest, your elbows should be close to your body. If you spread them to the sides, the load from the triceps goes to the pectoral muscles. When lifting, we fully extend our arms.

We do a warm-up approach of 10-15 repetitions. We hang up the working weights and start exercising: 3 sets of 10 repetitions.

Not only the work of the triceps, but also the degree of load on the anterior deltoid muscles will depend on where you lower the weight. The nuances here are as follows: by lowering the barbell to the bottom of your chest, you maximize the use of both triceps and shoulders. There is damage to the latter. The most correct technique in this case is to lift the barbell from the middle of the chest. Try to put it there too.

If you feel pain in your shoulders, stop this exercise immediately.

Inner chest press

We originally talked about the close grip press in relation to training the triceps. This same option is designed to emphasize the load on the inner part of the pectoral muscles.

The barbell will need to be taken with an even narrower grip than in the previous case.

1. Lie down so that the back of your head, pelvis and shoulder blades are pressed against the bench.
2. Place your legs so that your position on the bench is stable.
3. Now grab the bar so that your hands are 8-10 cm apart from each other.
4. Spread your elbows in opposite directions. Remove the bar with your arms straight.
5. Lower the weight to your chest (between your diaphragm and collarbones).

Do 10-15 warm-up reps. Hang up a working weight (light) and perform 3 sets of 12 reps. This way you will work the inner part of the pectoral muscles.

One of the common problems when performing this type of bench press is that it is difficult to hold the barbell when grasping the bar with this grip. In addition, your wrists are in a rather awkward position. These are perhaps the only serious disadvantages of the exercise.

This version of the press should not be performed on an inclined bench at different angles - only lying in a horizontal position.

Errors

In any exercise, there is one way to do the movement correctly and many ways to do it incorrectly. Pay attention to popular mistakes and try to avoid them.

Heavy weight

When a person takes on too much weight, from the outside it looks like this:

• The lifting of the barbell is not carried out smoothly, but with the help of a jerk and bending of the whole body.
• The bar swings and moves not along a given path, but at random.
• The weight is lowered very quickly, the bar falls on the chest and is absorbed from it.

Naturally, in this case the technique will be dangerous for muscles, joints and ligaments. You can easily dislocate your shoulder. And the lower you lower the bar, right down to your stomach, the greater the load on your shoulders. And the triceps, on the contrary, will lose it.

Incorrect elbow position

The degree of load on the triceps depends on the position of your elbows. Elbows should be pressed to the body and move strictly up and down, but not to the sides.

In this case, you will achieve maximum load on them.

Using an Incline Bench

There is no point in working at positive angles. This will not change the load on different areas of the triceps. Therefore, there is no need to work on an incline bench. Just move it to a horizontal position. Or, alternatively, use a bench with a slight negative incline.

Using locks of different weights

This subtlety is not entirely obvious, but still.

It is important that the locks on the bar weigh the same. A difference of 200-300 grams is enough to make it possible to lose balance, especially in the last repetitions, when there is practically no strength.

When you do a barbell lift, this difference will mean that one arm will be able to press the weight, but the other will not. As a result, the bar will move to the right or left. Be careful and select the same locks on both ends of the bar.

Breath

Don't complicate your life - breathe correctly.

Lifting is carried out while exhaling, lowering the weight - while inhaling.

Exhalation occurs through the mouth, and inhalation occurs through the nose. This is because you can exhale more forcefully through your mouth than through your nose. This means you can lift the weight more powerfully.

Too light weight

Select the weight so that the last 2-3 repetitions of each approach are difficult for you. If you have any strength left, the weight is too light. This is only permissible at first, when you start training. After a month of introductory training, you need to gradually increase the weights to failure in order to effectively spend time in the gym.