reckonerClose-grip push-up
A push-up with the hands under the chest instead of under the shoulders. Moving them in shortens the lever the chest is working on and hands more of the job to the triceps, which is why the first one always feels heavier than you expected it to.
Elbows tucked in, hands under the chest.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Triceps, chest
- Kit
- Bodyweight, floor
- Loading
- Your own bodyweight
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- Nothing to add, so the sets climb instead
- Skill
- Some technique
- Recovery cost
- Low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Wrist, elbow
Muscles worked
How to do it
Put the hands under the chest
Elbows tucked in, hands under the chest. Close enough that your thumbs are near each other, not necessarily touching. A full diamond is one option rather than the requirement.
Get the body into one line
Feet together or hip width, glutes and abs switched on, head in line with the spine. The plank has to exist before the push-up does, because everything you fail to hold still ends up as movement at the hips.
Lower with the elbows brushing your ribs
The upper arms should stay close to your sides all the way down. Wide elbows on a narrow hand position is the worst of both, giving you the awkward wrist angle and none of the triceps work.
Press away and finish the lockout
Push the floor away until the elbows are straight without letting the shoulders round forward at the top. Full lockout is where the triceps finish the rep and where most people stop a fraction early.
What goes wrong
Letting the elbows flare out
The hands come in, the elbows go wide, and the movement quietly turns back into a normal push-up with an uncomfortable wrist position. If you cannot keep the upper arms against your ribs for the whole set, put your hands a little wider and keep the tuck.
Letting the hips sag
The lower back drops, the range shortens, and the set carries on looking like it is working. Squeeze the glutes before the first rep and stop the set on the rep where the line goes rather than three after it.
Assuming a push-up cannot build anything
Eighteen men trained twice a week for eight weeks, one group on a bench press at 40 per cent of their one repetition maximum and one on push-ups adjusted to match that load: both groups increased their bench press maximum and both increased triceps and pectoralis major thickness2. In a separate five week study, band push-ups matched to a heavy bench press for muscle activity produced strength gains that were not different between the two3.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 10 | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 14 | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
How close should my hands be?
Close, and a full diamond is optional. Twenty men were measured through diamond, standard and wide push-ups: the triceps was more active than the pectoralis major in all three, the diamond produced the highest raw activity, and once the readings were normalized the diamond and the standard were both higher than the wide with no significant difference between them1. So the useful move is bringing the hands in from wide, not squeezing them into a triangle at the cost of your wrists.
Does moving the hands in really change what it trains?
It does in the loaded equivalent, which is the closest thing to a controlled test. Twenty eight men benched their six repetition maximum at three grip widths, and in the trained group the triceps read 77.6 per cent of maximum on the narrow grip against 68.8 per cent on the wide4. Reading that across to a push-up is reasoning rather than a result, but the joint angles are doing the same thing. A study of eight triceps exercises also put the triangle push-up at the top, with no significant difference between it, kickbacks and dips5.
What does Reckoner do when this lift stalls?
There is nothing to add to a bodyweight press, so when you top the rep range comfortably it adds a working set rather than load. When the lift stalls it has no weight to ease, so it goes straight to offering you another movement from the group below.
Similar movements
There is no load to ease on this lift, so Reckoner offers one of these the first time it stalls. Each of them has a page.
Sources
- Intziegianni, Katsamis, Michaelides and Parpa, Muscles, 2026. Electromyographic activation of the pectoralis major and triceps brachii muscles during standard, diamond, and wide hand position push-ups twenty recreationally active men showing higher triceps than pectoralis major activation across all three hand positions, the diamond highest for raw activity, and diamond and standard both above wide once normalized with no difference between them
- Kikuchi and Nakazato, Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness, 2017. Low-load bench press and push-up induce similar muscle hypertrophy and strength gain eighteen men over eight weeks, push-ups matched to 40 per cent of bench press one repetition maximum producing comparable increases in maximum strength and in triceps and pectoralis major thickness
- Calatayud and colleagues, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2015. Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity results in similar strength gains thirty trained students over five weeks, with band push-ups matched to six repetition maximum bench press for muscle activity producing similar strength gains
- Saeterbakken and colleagues, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021. The effect of grip width on muscle strength and electromyographic activity in bench press among novice and resistance-trained men twenty eight men at three grip widths, the resistance-trained group reading 77.6 per cent of maximum triceps activation on the narrow grip against 68.8 per cent on the wide
- Boehler, under Porcari, University of Wisconsin La Crosse, master's thesis, 2011. Electromyographic analysis of the triceps brachii muscle during a variety of triceps exercises fifteen participants across eight triceps exercises, with no significant difference between the triangle push-up, kickbacks and dips