maratoolClose-Grip Push-Up off of a Dumbbell
How to do the close-grip push-up off of a dumbbell
- Lie on the floor and place your hands on an upright dumbbell. Supporting your weight on your toes and hands, keep your torso rigid and your elbows in with your arms straight. This will be your starting position.
- Lower your body, allowing the elbows to flex while you inhale. Keep your body straight, not allowing your hips to rise or sag.
- Press yourself back up to the starting position by extending the elbows. Breathe out as you perform this step.
- After a pause at the contracted position, repeat the movement for the prescribed amount of repetitions.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the triceps brachii, which straightens the elbow, and through its long head helps pull the arm back at the shoulder.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders; the chest adds pushing force at the shoulder; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
Every exercise for:TricepsAbdominalsChestShoulders
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the triceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Decline Close Grip Bench to Skull Crusherbarbell
- Decline Triceps Extension with Dumbbelldumbbell
- Dip Machinemachine
- EZ-Bar Skullcrushere-z curl bar
- Incline Pushdown with Cablecable
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 99 triceps exercises in this database, 26 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.