A close grip push-up is a floor push-up with your hands under your chest, a little narrower than your shoulders, and your elbows kept close to your sides. You hold your body straight on your hands and toes, bend your elbows to lower your chest toward the floor between your hands, and press back up. Bringing the hands in and tucking the elbows shifts more of the work onto the back of the upper arms (triceps), with the chest and the front of the shoulders helping. It is a hard version, best kept for people who can already do regular push-ups with good form.

How to do the close grip push-ups

Get down on a mat, face to the floor. Place your hands flat on the floor under your chest, a little narrower than shoulder width, with your fingers pointing forward.
Straighten your arms and come up onto your toes, with your body in one straight line from your head to your heels.
Breathe in and bend your elbows to lower your chest toward the floor between your hands. Let the elbows travel back past your ribs rather than out to the sides.
Lower only as far as your body stays straight. In the video the chest stops short of the floor.
Breathe out and press back up to straight arms. That is one repetition.

What you should feel

Strong work in the back of your upper arms, with your chest and the front of your shoulders joining in. Your stomach and buttocks work to keep your hips level.

Common mistakes

Letting the elbows flare out wide as you lower.
Setting the hands too far forward, so your face rather than your chest heads for the floor.
Letting the hips sag, or lifting the bottom into the air.
Bouncing out of the bottom instead of pressing up with control.
Holding your breath.

How often

Once regular push-ups are comfortable, many programs use 2 to 3 sets of 5 to 10 close grip push-ups, 2 or 3 days a week, stopping each set before your form slips. Your physio will adjust this.

Stop and check with your physio if

Chest pain or pressure, dizziness or feeling faint, a racing or irregular heartbeat, or being far more out of breath than the effort should cause.
Sharp pain in a wrist, at the back of an elbow, or in a shoulder.
Pins and needles, numbness or pain spreading into an arm or hand.
Pins and needles in your arm or hand that do not go away after you stop, or part of your arm or hand goes numb. Get medical advice the same day. If one side of your face or body suddenly goes numb or weak, or your speech becomes slurred or muddled, call emergency services, even if it goes away.

From the clinic

The voice guide places the hands almost touching. In the video they sit only a little inside shoulder width, with the elbows tucked in, and this page follows the video. Moving the hands closer makes the arms work harder but loads the wrists and elbows more. If your wrists or elbows complain, keep the hands at the width in the video.

The same narrow hands work with your knees on the mat, or with your hands on a sturdy bench or kitchen counter, which takes off some of your body weight. If a full push-up on your toes is not there yet, build up through incline push-ups, knee push-ups and standard push-ups. Diamond push-ups take the hands the rest of the way together.

Narrow hands bend the wrists back under a lot of load. Holding push-up handles, or two heavy dumbbells that will not roll, lets the wrists stay straight. After shoulder surgery or a dislocation, or with ongoing elbow or shoulder pain, check with your physio before you try this version.

Push-ups on your toes load the stomach wall heavily. If you are pregnant, have recently given birth, have had abdominal surgery or have a hernia, ask your physio or doctor before you do close grip push-ups.

If you have high blood pressure, breathe steadily through every repetition and never hold your breath. With a heart condition or high blood pressure, check with your doctor before you start. If chest pain, pressure or tightness does not ease quickly when you rest, spreads to your arm, neck, jaw, stomach or back, or comes with sweating, feeling sick, feeling light-headed or being short of breath, call emergency services straight away, as this can be a heart attack. If it eases quickly and none of these happen, get medical advice the same day, and do not exercise again until you have been checked. If you faint while exercising, call emergency services, even if you feel fine again quickly.

Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-09-28.

This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. If you have pain, an injury or a health condition, see a physiotherapist or doctor before starting new exercises.

Close grip push-ups