What muscles do close grip push-ups work?

The chest does the work with the triceps taking a larger share than at standard hand width, and the front of the shoulders assisting. Your midsection holds the line, as in any push-up.

How close should my hands be?

About a hand-width gap between your thumbs, placed under the lower half of your chest. Narrower than your shoulders without being a diamond. What matters more is that your elbows stay alongside your ribs.

Close grip push-ups or diamond push-ups?

Same idea, two points on a scale. The diamond is the extreme version and asks more of the wrist. If your wrists are happy in it, use it. If not, a close grip gets you most of the way with no argument.

Do close grip push-ups work the inner chest?

No. For an inner chest to exist there would have to be fibers that start near your breastbone and stop before they reach your arm, and there are none. Everything that starts on your sternum runs the whole way out to the same tendon. Bringing your hands in changes the angle you press through, and your triceps are what notice.

Are close grip push-ups just for triceps?

They are not a swap. Measured against a wide hand position, narrowing raised activity in the chest as well as the triceps, so it asks more of both rather than moving work from one to the other.

Why can I do fewer close grip push-ups?

Because the position asks more of you. Both the chest and the triceps measure higher at narrow hand widths, so the set ends sooner. That is the exercise doing what it is supposed to.

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Bodyweight · intermediate · chest

Close grip push ups

Also called Narrow push-up, Close hand push-up, Triceps push-up, Close grip push-up.

The short answer

A close grip push-up sets your hands under your chest, narrower than your shoulders, and lowers you with your elbows brushing your sides. Your chest does the work and your triceps take a bigger share than they do at standard width. The part almost nobody says out loud is that the hand spacing is not the variable that matters most here. Where your elbows travel is, and you can get most of this variation by tucking them at a normal hand width.

How to do it

Step oneBegin in a plank position with your hands placed directly under your chest, closer than shoulder-width apart.
Step twoKeep your elbows close to your sides throughout the movement.
Step threeLower your chest toward the floor in a controlled manner, keeping your core engaged and your body in a straight line.
Step fourPause briefly at the bottom, then press through your palms to return to the starting position.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

Your hands are narrow but your elbows still point out to the sides.

WhyNarrow hands and tucked elbows are two separate things, and only one of them happens automatically. It is entirely possible to set the hands close and then flare, which gives you an awkward hand position and none of the benefit.

FixThink about the elbows, not the hands. Aim them backward past your ribs on the way down, so your upper arms end up alongside your torso rather than across it. If they will not go there, your hands are probably too far forward.

Your hands end up somewhere near your shoulders.

WhyHands creep up the body over a set because it feels stronger there. The higher they go, the more the shoulders reach overhead and the less your chest and triceps can press in a straight line.

FixPlace them under the lower half of your chest, roughly level with your nipples, and reset between sets rather than mid-set. It is one of the few things worth checking from the side on a phone once.

You are not sure your hands are actually close.

WhyClose grip is a name, not a measurement, and most people who think they are doing one have their hands at about shoulder width, which is standard.

FixPut your hands under your chest with a gap of about a hand-width between the thumbs. That is narrower than your shoulders without being a diamond, and it is a landmark you can repeat.

You can do far fewer of these than standard push-ups and assume something is wrong.

WhyNothing is. Bringing the hands in raises the demand on the chest and the triceps at the same time, which was measured directly, so a smaller number is exactly what you would expect.

FixTreat it as its own exercise with its own numbers rather than a version of the one you are used to. Comparing the two rep counts tells you nothing useful.

Close grip or diamond

These get argued about as though they were different exercises. They are the same idea at two points on a scale, and the practical difference is mostly your wrists.

A diamond puts your hands together with the thumbs and index fingers touching, which angles the forearms inward while the wrist is already bent back under load. Some people find that fine and some find it the limiting factor of the whole movement.

A close grip leaves a gap between the hands, so the forearms stay closer to parallel and the wrist has an easier time. The elbows still tuck, the demand still shifts toward the triceps, and almost everyone can hold the position.

If your wrists are comfortable in the diamond, use it. If they are not, a close grip gives you most of the same thing without the argument, and there is no prize for the more extreme hand position.

Close grip push-up or close grip bench press

They are the same idea from opposite directions, and which one is loaded is only part of the difference.

On a bench, a bar fixes both hands at one spacing and forces them along one path. Your wrists, elbows and shoulders have to fit whatever that path is, and if the spacing suits one of your shoulders better than the other, there is nothing to be done about it.

In a push-up, each hand sits where it wants. You can turn them out slightly, set one a fraction wider than the other, and let each shoulder find the line it prefers. That freedom is why people who find the close grip bench press awkward often have no trouble here.

The bench press wins on load, as it always does. The push-up wins on fit, and on being available in any room.

The variable everybody talks about, and the one that matters

Every guide to this movement is about hand spacing. How many inches apart, whether the thumbs touch, whether shoulder-width counts. It is the wrong thing to be measuring.

Try it and see. Set your hands narrow and let your elbows flare out to the sides. It feels bad, it presses at almost the same angle as a wide push-up, and it is not close grip in any sense that matters. Now set your hands at normal shoulder width and drive your elbows back along your ribs. That feels like a close grip push-up, because the upper arm is traveling through the same angle.

The hands are a convenient way to make the elbows behave, and that is most of what they are for. Bringing them in gives the elbows nowhere else to go. But the elbows are the thing doing the changing, which is why the catalog steps here tell you to keep them close to your sides and say nothing about how many inches apart your thumbs should be.

The practical upshot: if narrow hands bother your wrists, widen them and keep the tuck. You have not lost the exercise.

What it is for

Close grip push ups are a push-up with the hands set narrow, targeting the chest with the triceps working harder than in a standard push-up. A narrow hand position has been measured to raise activity in both muscles rather than trading one for the other.

Questions people ask

What muscles do close grip push-ups work?: The chest does the work with the triceps taking a larger share than at standard hand width, and the front of the shoulders assisting. Your midsection holds the line, as in any push-up.
How close should my hands be?: About a hand-width gap between your thumbs, placed under the lower half of your chest. Narrower than your shoulders without being a diamond. What matters more is that your elbows stay alongside your ribs.
Close grip push-ups or diamond push-ups?: Same idea, two points on a scale. The diamond is the extreme version and asks more of the wrist. If your wrists are happy in it, use it. If not, a close grip gets you most of the way with no argument.
Do close grip push-ups work the inner chest?: No. For an inner chest to exist there would have to be fibers that start near your breastbone and stop before they reach your arm, and there are none. Everything that starts on your sternum runs the whole way out to the same tendon. Bringing your hands in changes the angle you press through, and your triceps are what notice.
Are close grip push-ups just for triceps?: They are not a swap. Measured against a wide hand position, narrowing raised activity in the chest as well as the triceps, so it asks more of both rather than moving work from one to the other.
Why can I do fewer close grip push-ups?: Because the position asks more of you. Both the chest and the triceps measure higher at narrow hand widths, so the set ends sooner. That is the exercise doing what it is supposed to.