How Close is your Close Grip Bench?

I was training my bench recently and was sharing the station with some guy.
So after doing his regular bench he moved into CG bench and his thumbs were pretty damn close to each other.
He told me he found putting his hands this close made him really feel his tris doing the work.
I dont do much CG because for some reason i feel it more in my shoulders than triceps but i gave his method a try anyway since it obviously worked cause his arms were not small.
So I put a 45 on each side, got under it and set my hands roughly 8-10 cm apart. I unrack it, its already shaky, i press-------FAIL.
Is it me with the problem or what?

yeah its you… no but really i did find the closer the more it hit my tri’s but it fucked up my wrists, so much strain being that close. My opinion is to go shoulder width so that you can track your arms along your sides and use more weight.

IMO if you close grip bench you should never flare AT ALL, keep the arms at the sides will make the tri’s work harder.

I didn’t do it with that grip long enough to feel anything other than weak, but i can understand ho it’d mess up your wrists. The angle is weird.

Ok. No flare at all - got that.

Where am i meant to lower the bar to in a CG bench?

I tried very close grip bench with fat grips recently. It felt awesome. All tris.

I usually float around the closest smooth area of the bar. I switch each set between having my hands completely on the smooth of the bar and then having my pinky, 2 fingers or 3 fingers on the knurling. I’m always some part on the smooth though.

[quote]lumbahjack wrote:
I didn’t do it with that grip long enough to feel anything other than weak, but i can understand ho it’d mess up your wrists. The angle is weird.

Ok. No flare at all - got that.

Where am i meant to lower the bar to in a CG bench? [/quote]

i end up lowering it below the chest slightly, especially if you arch, idk what youre benching now, but when i took my CG from 185x10 to 225x10, i saw pretty sick gains in the arms, i lower it lower because if you keep your arms at your side it will bend your wrists back to lower it high up on your chest, also going lower will help push from the tri’s especially if you concetrate on pushing straight up instead of an arc.

Thanks for all the advice. Im gonna put it to use and see whether it works…

“I dont do much CG because for some reason i feel it more in my shoulders than triceps”

If you want to take your shoulders out of the movement try doing paused CG floor presses.

just inside shoulder width, i track the bar into my upper abs/lower ribcage.

i find i can keep my elbows just damn near at my sides that way.

Thanks guys. In the same vein; any of you ever tried close grip inclines and have they yielded results for you?

[quote]lumbahjack wrote:
Thanks guys. In the same vein; any of you ever tried close grip inclines and have they yielded results for you?[/quote]

To answer you original question: I consider my close grip to be my index fingers on the smooth grip, I also use thumbs left from smooth for ‘kinda close grip’ ( i used this for most ME pressing), my regular grip (pinky on smooth, where I’m strongest raw) and my wide grip ( middle finger on rings, I only use this when i shirted bench). I use the first three for Dynamic effort.

I’ve used CG incline as an assistance exercise in the past, it was fine. Just doing any full range raw pressing does cool stuff for my bench. I’m going to try it for a max effort movement soon, though.

Good luck

[quote]GhostOD wrote:

To answer you original question: I consider my close grip to be my index fingers on the smooth grip

[/quote]

Me too. Any closer and I call it a bodybuilder close grip. Its fine for RE work, but the extremely close grip bothers my wrists if I go too heavy.

i like close grip declines more for tricep development, incline close grip was always just hard for me just like i enjoy decline skull crushers much more

[quote]bignate wrote:
i like close grip declines more for tricep development, incline close grip was always just hard for me just like i enjoy decline skull crushers much more[/quote]

Iv only tried decline close grip in the smiths machine. Didn’t work at all.

[quote]GhostOD wrote:
I’ve used CG incline as an assistance exercise in the past, it was fine. Just doing any full range raw pressing does cool stuff for my bench. I’m going to try it for a max effort movement soon, though.

Good luck[/quote]

Thank you sir

[quote]theuofh wrote:
but the extremely close grip bothers my wrists if I go too heavy.[/quote]

me too, its the reason i got pinned by that litte weight. I couldn’t drive up with my wrists at that angle

try decline close grips free weight, you can really drive straight up with the tri’s. Also try nuetral grip db presses of all angles if youre looking for other tri dominant press moves.

I don’t like my wrists that close. Right outside of the smooth part in the middle of the bar is where I put my hands. Tri’s been getting stronger ever since.

Thanks guys