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Close-grip barbell bench press: elbows in, hands at shoulder width

Also called: close grip bench press, narrow grip bench. All one movement, one page.

By

We compute it and we cite it. We do not test gear. How we know this.

Short answer

Bench with your hands about shoulder width. Elbows stay tucked and the triceps take more of the load.

Pattern
Horizontal push
Equipment
Barbell · Plates · Flat bench · Rack
Usual bar
45 lb / 20.4 kgOhio Power Bar, 45 lb

Close-grip bench press setup

  1. 01Grip roughly shoulder width. Not so narrow that your wrists complain.
  2. 02Shoulder blades pinned, feet planted, same as any bench.

Close-grip bench press form, step by step

  1. 01Lower with elbows tucked closer to your sides, to the lower chest.
  2. 02Press back up, keeping the elbows in.

How to load the bar for the close-grip bench press

Before the close-grip barbell bench press is a rep, it is a number on the bar. Plates go on in pairs, one per sleeve, and the bar itself is part of the total — a 45 lb bar with a 45 on each side is 135 lb, not 90. This animation walks the three loads you will meet most often.

Our own render, modelled to the IPF bar spec and the published plate spec table.An original 3D animation showing how the three most common barbell loads are built. A 45 lb bar starts empty; a 45 lb plate slides onto each sleeve to make 135 lb, a second pair makes 225 lb, and a third pair makes 315 lb. The running total and the plates-per-side count are shown throughout. This is an illustration of a class of equipment, not footage of a specific product.Original animation by BarWeight — an illustration of this class of equipment, not footage of a specific product, and not a demonstration of how to perform a lift.

Need a different number? Run it through the plate math calculator.

Close-grip bench press video demonstration

Reading the steps only gets you so far, and a render cannot show you what a human body does under a bar. This is the close-grip barbell bench press demonstrated by a coach, not by us — we did not make this video, we do not host it, and we do not earn anything from it.

Demonstration

Narrow Grip Bench Press

Renaissance Periodization

Narrow Grip Bench Press — Renaissance Periodization. Embedded from YouTube; this site did not produce the video.Founded by Dr. Mike Israetel (PhD in Sport Physiology) and a team of exercise scientists/coaches; channel is built specifically around evidence-based hypertrophy and exercise technique.

Common close-grip bench press errors

  • Going so narrow the hands nearly touch. That is a wrist problem, not a triceps builder.
  • Letting the elbows flare, which just makes it a normal bench.

Close-grip bench press: muscles worked

Primary

  • Triceps brachii
  • Pectoralis major

Secondary

  • Anterior deltoid

How we know: Backed by the electromyography sources listed at the bottom of this page.

Close-grip bench press: what the evidence does and does not say

This lift is programmed almost everywhere as a triceps builder, and the elbows-tucked position is real. But the grip-width EMG evidence does not cleanly support the "narrow grip equals triceps" rule of thumb. The systematic review found triceps and pectoralis major activity similar in the bench press, and the grip-width study found no significant difference in that ratio between narrow and wide grips in most conditions. Say it plainly: this is convention.

How to program the close-grip bench press

Training convention: 3-4 sets of 6-12, common as a bench accessory or a triceps builder for lifters who want a pressing movement rather than an isolation.

Rep ranges are training convention. They are what most lifters and coaches do, not a measured result, and nothing on this page is medical advice.

Run the numbers

Knowing the lift is half of it. The other half is loading the bar correctly.

Questions people actually ask

▶How narrow should a close-grip bench press be?

Roughly shoulder width. Going so narrow that your hands nearly touch is a wrist problem, not a better triceps builder, and it tends to wreck the bar path.

▶Does a close grip really work the triceps more?

It is near-universal gym convention, but the EMG evidence does not support it cleanly — a grip-width study found no significant difference in the pec-to-triceps ratio between narrow and wide grips in most conditions. The elbow position genuinely changes, and that is what most people are feeling.

▶What is the difference between close-grip and regular bench press?

Hand spacing and elbow path. Close grip is about shoulder width with the elbows tucked toward the sides. Let the elbows flare and you have simply done a normal bench press with a narrow grip.

The kit this lift needs

Straight from this movement’s own equipment list. Each page below compares published specs across every model we have verified — no prices, no ratings, nothing we claim to have tested.

Same pattern, different lift

All barbell exercises

Sources

How this page is built and what we will and will not claim: read the methodology.