Close Triceps Pushup

🎯 Triceps🏋️ Body onlyCompoundChest (2°)

How to do the close triceps pushup

  1. This version of the Pushup isolates the tricep (back of the arm) muscles.
  2. Kneel down on the floor or a mat, placing your hand thumbs together and raise your up on your toes.
  3. Draw your abs in and keep your back and neck in a straight line.
  4. Slowly lower your body towards the floor, by bending your arms, until you are nearly touching the floor.
  5. In a controlled manner raise your body back up to the starting position.

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 chest adds pushing force at the shoulder.

Every exercise for:TricepsChest

How this movement works

Several joints move together, so effort spreads across a chain rather than concentrating in one place. Coordination is part of the difficulty: the movement is only as good as its weakest link, and improving it often means fixing a position somewhere other than the muscle you meant to train.

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:

Related exercises

Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.