Incline Push-Up Close-Grip
Also works: Chest · Shoulders
A push-up done with the hands touching on a raised bar or bench, body angled up. Raising the hands cuts the share of bodyweight you press, and the narrow grip shifts what is left onto the triceps. The bar height is the load dial: the higher it is, the lighter the set.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Set a Smith bar or a fixed rail at roughly hip to waist height for your first attempt — you can always lower it later.
- Set your hands about a hand's breadth inside shoulder width, thumbs pointing in. Close means the elbows stay near the ribs, not that the hands touch.
- Walk your feet back until your body is one straight line from ankle to ear, arms vertical.
- Squeeze your glutes and brace your abs before the first rep so your hips do not sag mid-set.
- Check the bar is locked or the platform cannot slide — a rolling Smith bar turns this into a face-first fall.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale on the way down, exhale as you press. Two seconds down, no pause at the bar, one second up, one-count hold at full lockout.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Bodyweight, adjusted by angle. Start at waist height: if you cannot get 8 strict reps there, go higher. Progress by lowering the bar one notch at a time, and only once you own 15 reps at the current height. Once floor-level close-grip push-ups are easy, add a weight vest or plate rather than chasing reps into the thirties.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Squeeze the glutes hard and think of the ribs pulling down towards the hips. Raise the bar one notch so you can hold the line for every rep.
Point your elbows back towards your feet, not out to the walls. Film one set from the front — flare shows up instantly and you cannot feel it.
Pause for a full count with the arms straight at the top of each rep. If that kills the set, the bar is too low for your current strength.
Progress only when you get 15 strict reps at the current height. Drop one rung, expect the reps to fall to 8-10, and build back up.
Why bother
Narrowing the hands does not so much add triceps work as remove chest work. The upper arm stops swinging out to the side, so less of the rep comes from the pec pulling the arm across the body and more of it comes from straightening the elbow. The chest still contributes through the bottom half; the triceps decide whether the rep finishes.
The incline is what makes this trainable by anyone. At waist height you press roughly 40-45% of your bodyweight; at a low box that climbs past 65%. You can pick a load to the nearest few kilos just by moving up or down a rung on the rack, without owning a single plate.
Where it fits
Use it as the pressing movement in a bodyweight session, or as a high-rep finisher after benching when your elbows have had enough of a loaded bar. Two to three sets to two reps short of failure, twice a week, and lower the bar a notch as soon as you clear 15 clean reps.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Asked and answered
Is a close-grip push-up bad for the wrists?
It loads the wrist into more extension than a shoulder-width push-up, and the incline actually helps — the higher your hands, the less weight sits on them. If it still pinches, grip a barbell or a pair of dumbbells so the wrist stays neutral instead of flat on a surface, and check you are not letting the hands slide forward as you fatigue.
Do I need my hands actually touching?
No, and touching them is not the point. Roughly shoulder-width minus a hand's breadth already puts the elbows where you want them. Jamming the hands into a tight diamond mostly loads the wrists and makes people flare their elbows to compensate.
Will this build triceps as well as a close-grip bench press?
For a beginner, yes, because the load is comparable. Once you can press meaningfully more than the fraction of bodyweight the incline gives you, the barbell wins on progression — you can add 2.5 kg, whereas here the smallest step is a whole rack notch. Keep this as a warm-up or finisher at that point.
Chest or triceps — which is this actually training?
Both, with the triceps as the limiting factor. The chest is heavily involved through the bottom half; the top half, from mid-range to lockout, is nearly all elbow extension. That is why the lockout pause matters more here than in a wide push-up.