Close grip bench press. We study all the subtleties and secrets

15.05.202027.05.2017

If you like to admire your own hands, and one of the main goals of training is to increase their size, then the barbell press narrow grip must be present in your program. By the way, for some reason many athletes, even those who already have serious experience in a sport such as, neglect this exercise, mistakenly believing that it is not much different from the classic bench press. In fact, there is a difference, and it is quite significant.

To whom and why?

If the classic bench press primarily loads the pectoral muscles, then a narrow grip focuses the main tension on triceps muscles shoulder - triceps. At the same time, although the pectoral muscles do the work, they do it much less, and mainly only their muscles are involved. upper part. In addition, the front beam receives partial load deltoid muscles.

The exercise is multi-joint (or basic), and is equally suitable for both athletes with many years of experience and beginners who bought their first membership a week ago. In both cases, bench press with a narrow grip not only increases the volume of the triceps, but also increases their strength.

Correct technique

Performing any exercise, first of all, requires correct and proven technique. Even if you lift a substantial weight, but perform the movement incorrectly, your efficiency and speed of progress will suffer, not to mention possible injuries. Therefore, carefully read the description below and take the time to practice the exercise.

To begin with, we accept the original one. It is the same as for the classic bench press: we lie down on horizontal bench, while our back of the head, buttocks and upper back must be pressed tightly against its surface, and our legs must stand securely and steadily on the floor. In this case, you need to lie down in such a way that the bar of the barbell is approximately above the lower part chest.

Firmly grasp the bar with both hands, placing them narrower than shoulder width. The closer your wrists are to each other, the more the load will be focused on the triceps.

Remove the bar from the racks and extend your arms up. In this case, the bar should not be at eye level, but slightly lower - approximately at neck level.

As you inhale, begin to smoothly lower the barbell down, without spreading your elbows to the sides - they should be pressed as tightly as possible to the body. Otherwise, the load will shift to the pectoral muscles.

Touch the bar to the lower part of the chest, hold in this position for a while, then gently press the bar as you exhale. Again, do not spread your elbows out to the sides.

Perform the required number of approaches.

It is very easy to make a mistake in performing this exercise. Therefore, do not limit yourself to reading the points described above - it is best to additionally watch a training video, or ask a trainer to check the correct execution.

Use a lighter working weight than with a regular bench press - a barbell press with a narrow grip almost completely eliminates the pectoral muscles from the work, and it is much more difficult to squeeze the same weight with just the triceps.

Choose your own comfortable grip. The main rule of the exercise is that it should be narrower than shoulder width, but this does not mean that you should place your palms close to each other. The narrower the grip, the easier it is to lose balance.

Be sure to carefully monitor the position of your elbows - the slightest deviation of them to the sides from the body sharply reduces the effectiveness of the exercise - direct emphasis on the triceps. By moving your elbows to the sides, the load moves to the middle of the pectoral muscles.

Alternatively, you can perform the exercise with a shortened bar.

Now you know, using the close grip bench press. The triceps give the bulk of your arms, and this muscle group is worth paying attention to if you want big arms.

The military press is a regular bench press. And the army one is a standing shoulder press, also known as a chest press, or a standing barbell press. The exercise is basic, used not only in bodybuilding, but also in the training of weightlifters and powerlifters. Quite popular, but considered controversial; many athletes believe that it is the cause of spinal injuries, hernias and protrusions. When done correctly, this is not the case. On the contrary, the movement teaches how to stabilize the spine under load, and is very useful for anyone who wants to find a balance between development physical qualities and the beauty of the body.

The movement is carried out due to the triceps, the anterior and middle heads of the deltoid muscles and partly, rear deltoid. The muscles of the legs, buttocks, and core work as stabilizers. It is a mistake to think that military press is an exercise that involves work calf muscles. It is a technical fault if the lifter pushes the weight upward with their legs. If performed correctly, the result will be a shwung; if performed incorrectly, it will be a mediocre imitation.

Some articles actually claim that this movement helps pump up your breasts. In fact, the pecs contract, acting as a shoulder stabilizer, and gradually stretch as the lifter lifts the bar behind his head. But the load cannot be considered sufficient for their hypertrophy. Significant confusion has also arisen because many article authors confuse the military-style bench press with the army press. A military-style press is usually called a bench press without supporting your legs, and a military-style press is a standing press.

It is not possible to turn off the stabilizers while standing. Therefore, it is better to leave ideas about performing this movement in Smith without implementation. The Smith machine is a fixed barbell with a trajectory that is exclusively suitable for seated overhead presses, not chest presses. Some machines simulate an elliptical path to make the pressing movement more natural, but not every shoulder can work in this exact path. Therefore, it is better not to use the Smith machine option.

Turn off stabilizers from operation in basic exercises- a very irrational activity. Athletes make a base in order to develop all the muscles of the body and activate neuromuscular connections, and not in order to later think about how exactly to adapt it so that the base is not a base.

To begin with, this movement did not come from the training of US Navy SEALs, as is commonly written everywhere in RuNet, but as a traditional element of training weightlifters. The SEALs really do it, since a good military press will help both throw a bag onto a support and pull out a wounded comrade if something happens. But it is impossible to say for sure who “invented” the exercise. Lifting weights overhead was known to the ancient Greeks, judging by the frescoes, and has always been considered a good developmental exercise.

The military press allows you to develop not so much the strength of the shoulders and triceps themselves, but rather the synergy in the movement of the legs, body, and arms. In addition, it allows you to increase the strength of the entire upper body precisely due to stabilization. It also serves as an excellent special-preparatory movement for a good half of bench press exercises, and partly for strength-speed exercises, such as clean and jerks.

All this has led to the high popularity of the exercise in modern times. In fact, it was not powerlifting or bodybuilding that “infected” the masses with this movement, but CrossFit. When many people came to CrossFit boxes in order to become as cool as those guys in the video, they discovered that they lacked not only strength indicators, but also endurance, as well as banal amplitude in the joints. The military bench press helps you gain everything necessary movements in CrossFit, from medicine ball throws from the chest to weightlifting clean and jerks. It also serves to stabilize the shoulder joint in movements performed on the bar.

The military press was also respected by old school bodybuilders. Most of them trained in one way or another with coaches who came from Soviet weightlifting. In this form, lifting weights overhead is a basic movement.

The benefits of the exercise do not end with its applied significance for various disciplines. Being basic, it involves most of the muscles of the upper body. This allows the athlete to effectively increase muscle mass, and activate neuromuscular connections, as a result, the gain will actually happen faster than if you only do isolation in the simulators.

In addition to the shoulders, the movement works great on the triceps. It allows you to change the shape of your hands. Therefore, the military bench press is often given to girls who want to quickly tone their arms, no matter how paradoxical it may sound.

With the correct technique, movement serves as an excellent prevention of problems arising due to insufficiently active blood circulation in the cervical-collar area. A number of sources mention that the military bench press is a prevention of trapezius hypertonicity in security forces and headaches associated with muscle spasms.

Important: all the benefits of the military press are revealed only when performing the exercise with the correct technique

For beginners, the movement has two serious disadvantages:

Possibility of injury due to technical violations;
Risk of falling

Some athletes simply do not have time to “unhook” their hands from the apparatus and therefore fall back along with the barbell. This usually happens if the weight taken is too heavy. For novice athletes, movement carries many dangers, especially if a person cannot adequately assess training volume. We are not talking about injuries and falls. Many athletes really want to build up their shoulders faster, so they do a monstrous amount of work on them. This causes inflammation in soft tissues and pain.

They say that the reason is the military press itself, and they forbid doing it. But in fact, the reason is the abundance of different presses, and insufficient time and resources of the body for recovery.

A beginner whose strength is not yet sufficient to adequately stabilize the lower back in an exercise may also experience a back injury. Usually this is a vertebral displacement, protrusion or hernia. It is impossible to assume that this movement alone is the cause. In practice, there are many more reasons, and one of them is the weakness of the front abdominal wall. Until the abs become stronger, it is recommended to wear an athletic belt. But this is not a panacea. The skill of keeping your back neutral will still have to be developed, no matter how much you would like to exercise safely all your life using only a belt.

Hand injuries are common due to improper technique. Many people do not place the bar in the middle of the palm, and do not provide even pressure, but simply try to redistribute the weight so that it is comfortable to lift. This is not always optimal for the wrists. Wrist bandages partly solve the problem of such athletes.

This is a technically difficult exercise. Before performing it, you need a full joint warm-up, and you just need to activate the entire shoulder girdle. During the warm-up you need to perform several series circular rotations back and forth.

The movement is performed as follows:

you need to set the racks to a height that is suitable for a front squat. The bar should rest freely on the chest;
the grip is shoulder-width apart, the athlete grabs the barbell from both sides, the grip is quite tight, then the chest is brought under the bar and the athlete extends his legs, removing the barbell from the racks;
moving away from the racks looks like a classic squat. After this, the athlete tightens his abs, stabilizes his lower back, rests his feet on the platform, and in one movement along an elliptical path presses the barbell upward;
the correct trajectory of the projectile is upward in an arc behind the head, and not straight ahead;
lowering also occurs smoothly;
touching the chest in each movement is required only if the athlete works without pain and discomfort. Lowering itself is not a necessary element of the exercise.

After completing the approach, the barbell returns to the racks.

Wrong trajectory

Some people manage to make this movement into a parody of the bench press. They press straight up at the highest point, pushing the barbell away from the body. This turns out to be a rather traumatic variation for the shoulders, which, as the weight increases, also becomes a cause of falls. Another trajectory error is bringing the barbell sharply behind the head; this option is not acceptable because it contributes to an unnatural overload. cervical spine spine. The third trajectory error is the “nose press,” that is, performing the exercise at half the amplitude.

A hodgepodge of styles and exercises

Some athletes confuse this movement with the barbell overhead press due to technique. They do not press their forearms to the body, but do all the work by pushing the weight away from themselves and moving it behind the head. In this case, the elbows are spread to the sides, and the shoulders at the start are parallel to the floor. Everything would be fine if it were just this starting position would not cause subacromial syndrome. Using this technique is fraught with joint pain.

Big ego

Huge weights lifted up look cool. But then treating inflammation of the ligaments and muscle tears is not at all as great. Working weights should be increased only when the movement technique allows them to be increased. Everything else is still superfluous.

Engaging your legs, back, and core

Some athletes, instead of bench presses, perform a half-push, a push-up, anything to push the weight with their legs. If you can’t squeeze the barbell smoothly with your hands, you should simply reduce the weight of the weight. It is not necessary to work with the help of the body and legs.

Heel-to-toe rolls

Many people find it difficult to hold weight without losing balance during exercise. Such people should try to carefully maintain their balance, transferring their weight to the middle of the arch of the foot. If this doesn’t work out and all you can do is roll, you should switch to a seated press and simultaneously work on developing the muscles of your legs and core.

Excessive training volume

This is common for all beginners. It seems to them that the program is for hacks, and they train less than everyone else in the gym. So the person begins to perform all the approaches that, in principle, he can perform. The volume increases significantly, but the intensity stops growing. The athlete experiences pain in his ligaments and joints, he does not get stronger, and his training simply becomes another attempt to overcome himself. Over time, cumulative injuries appear, and the person refuses to exercise.

Lack of mobility in joints

Sometimes they write that movement cannot be performed only with arthrosis and osteochondrosis, but the problem is that a completely healthy person may be unable to make a movement of exactly this amplitude due to “office posture,” that is, weakness of the back muscles when the trapezius and pectoral muscles are overloaded. Over time, as your back strengthens, you will be able to lift weights overhead more effectively. Until this point, it is recommended to work with dumbbells.

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 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.
The pectoralis major muscles work in synergy with the triceps. When you change your grip to a wider one and move your elbows to the sides, you take the load on yourself.
Deltoid muscles (anterior bundle).

It all depends on your training goals:

Typically, the triceps press is done on the day of the muscles of the same name (chest and triceps) after the classic bench press, bench press incline bench 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. By first performing a bench press with a narrow grip, you can do French press and extension of the arms on a block, and then finish off the muscle by curling 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 observe the barbell press with a narrow grip in different designs. Below are two options, the technique of which is different.

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

Lie correctly on the bench: the pelvis, back of the head and shoulder blades should be pressed against its surface.
Grasp the bar so that there is 25–30 cm between your hands, straight grip.
Straighten your arms, removing the bar from the racks. Bring it to a position so that it is against the middle of your chest.
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.

Let's do warm-up approach in 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 immediately. this exercise.

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.

Lie down so that the back of your head, pelvis and shoulder blades are pressed against the bench.
Place your legs so that your position on the bench is stable.
Now grab the bar so that your hands are 8–10 cm apart from each other.
Spread your elbows in opposite directions. Remove the bar with your arms straight.
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 inner part 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 man has taken too heavy 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 hand 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

Choose 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.

What not to do

The first is to check how much you can squeeze out at once. The close grip bench press can be dangerous to the elbows and shoulders if used maximum weights. The triceps press is needed for pumping muscles, and not for demonstration performances.

Secondly, work without a good warm-up. Always pre-warm up your muscles.

Take a special bench and place it under the barbell racks. Position it so that after you lie down on it, the bar should be in front of your eyes.
Take your starting position. The back, shoulders, buttocks and head should lie tightly on the bench, with the lower back slightly arched. In the event that there are no racks for the bar, one or two assistants can replace them. With their help, a heavy projectile will be fed and received.
Let's consider the case when you have everything. Place your hands on the bar with an overhand grip. Try to slightly narrow the distance between your palms so that it is slightly less than shoulder width. There are no specific recommendations on how far to narrow your arms. Just grip it in such a way that it is convenient for you to maintain the balance of the apparatus during the exercise.
To remove the barbell from the stand, press it up and slide it so that the bar is above your neck. Notice that it used to be above your head.
While inhaling and holding your breath, lower the barbell. It should not touch the chest, but at the same time be as close to it as possible.
As soon as the bar comes close to your chest, but does not touch it, press up as you exhale. Almost at the very top, the exhalation should end and the last centimeters should be pressed on the bar while holding your breath.
At the very top, take a short rest for a second and at this time tighten your triceps as much as possible.
When bending and extending your arms, try to ensure that your elbows do not diverge to the sides.
This exercise should be performed at a moderate pace.

Wishes

The close-grip bench press is considered a rather difficult exercise and requires a lot of effort from the athlete. By the way, the weight that is installed on the apparatus is also one of the maximum, among other exercises for training triceps. Therefore, you need to do this type of training at the very beginning, when your body is still fresh.

At first, when there is not much experience yet, you will have to spend additional effort to maintain the balance of the barbell. By the way, there is a special curved necks, which are intended to facilitate this task.

When you want to train only triceps, you don’t need to stop the barbell on your chest. As soon as this happens, other muscles immediately come into play. Few people know this nuance and therefore often make a typical mistake.

Another mistake that you may make unknowingly. It would seem logical to push the barbell using the spring action from the chest. Just don't do this. It is better to reduce the weight if it is otherwise difficult to lift or reduce the number of repetitions.

It is very important to hold your breath almost at the very top point of the lift of the projectile. In general, this happens automatically even among inexperienced athletes, but still, keep an eye on this moment.

When lifting, do not arch your back, this is also a mistake.

Avoid holding the barbell with hands that are too close together. During the movement of the barbell, the elbows will necessarily diverge to the sides and the right muscles will not receive the load you planned.

And the last word of advice, when you bench press a barbell with a narrow grip, ask an assistant to follow the trajectory of its movement from the side. It should look like a wide arc. It will begin in the neck area and end in the area of the lower ribs of the chest.

That seems to be all the wishes. Good luck to you, Friends, in mastering the close-grip bench press exercise!

Today we'll talk about close grip press, this exercise is designed to develop the triceps. In my opinion, there are two most effective basic exercises for developing triceps:

1.Push-ups (I have already written about this exercise, if you are interested, check it out).

2. Bench press with a narrow grip.

Technique for performing close-grip triceps presses

In order for the triceps, and not the pecs, to work on the barbell press with a narrow grip, you need to know correct technique execution.

Many people know that the narrower the grip, during the bench press, the more the triceps work, the wider the grip, the more they work. Accordingly, people conclude that the narrower we take it, the better our triceps will work, but this is not entirely true. After all, you can press narrowly and work the inner part of the chest, not the triceps.

For the work of the triceps, the grip is not so important as the manner of performing the exercise, namely, it is important for us to perform extension in the elbow joint. To train the pectoral muscles, the movement must occur in the shoulder joint. That's the whole difference.

A narrower or wider grip is by and large for amateurs. An experienced athlete who has been training for a long time, he understands perfectly well that if he eliminates work as much as possible shoulder joint, but will be able to shift the work to elbow joint, then the triceps will work. This is the main point that you must constantly remember, and then the technical implementation of this point begins.

1. As you understand, grip width is not so important. I would recommend a grip slightly narrower than shoulder width. If you hold the barbell too narrowly, it will create a breaking load on your wrists, you will be painful and uncomfortable, and this will force you to work with less weight.

2.Where should I lower the barbell? The bar should not move at the level of the top of the chest, but as far away from you as possible ( great option lower under the chest, into the area solar plexus). The farther the barbell is from you, the less the shoulder joint works.

3.Position of elbows. To minimize shoulder joint work, you need to keep your elbows as close to your body as possible.

4. Amplitude of movement. In order not to make the work of the triceps easier, it is necessary to minimize assistance pectoral muscles. To do this, you should not touch your chest when lowering the bar; you need to stop about 15 cm before your chest and press up from this position. Thus, we do not help with the chest, and press from a dead point, only thanks to the triceps.

A little secret

To further concentrate the load on your triceps, use a bench with a negative incline (this is when your head is lower than your feet). The lower the inclination, the easier it is to exclude the shoulder joint from the work, that’s basically the whole secret, but personally I don’t see anyone benching like that in the gym, but try it! If you don’t have a negative bench in your gym, then you can place a block or a couple of barbell discs under the bench, thereby creating an incline.

Since this exercise is basic, you need to work in it with decent weights (about 80% of a regular bench press). Triceps strong muscle group and she loves heavy weights and the average number of repetitions is 6-10.