are close grip bench presses overrated?

[First Blood]

Some people love CGBP, i like dip machine, bench dips, etc. as substitutes for that area of tris. Worth trying decline CG with an E-Z curl bar if it's practical before giving up on them.

cool will do that...only problem i can think of is someone handing me the bar..lol

i will probably do high reps on the cgbp

[QuakerOats]

do you think it would be smart to work triceps with fast pace...moderate weight (8+ reps)...isolation movements...just to save the elbows?

actually i do go a little faster on arms because like i said you're not training as heavy and it's not as demanding on your whole body as larger bodypart movements so you could try that, 6 reps is usually as low as i go reps wise on arms.

[QuakerOats]

do you think it would be smart to work triceps with fast pace...moderate weight (8+ reps)...isolation movements...just to save the elbows?

that actually a great idea, try them on the decline, incline, slight decline, slight incline, floor, another thing i see people doing sometimes is grabbing the long pulldown bar and putting it in the seated bench press machine and doing close grips like that.

[First Blood]

actually i do go a little faster on arms because like i said you're not training as heavy and it's not as demanding on your whole body as larger bodypart movements so you could try that, 6 reps is usually as low as i go reps wise on arms.

thanks man ....im doing this routine now:

chest/back
legs
rest
shoulders/arms
rest
repeat....

so everything gets hit every 5th day....i noticed last week when i started doing this routine..that it goes alot of faster if i superset the arm part of the shoulder/arms workout.

[First Blood]

that actually a great idea, try them on the decline, incline, slight decline, slight incline, floor, another thing i see people doing sometimes is grabbing the long pulldown bar and putting it in the seated bench press machine and doing close grips like that.

yeah your right..i watched gunther schlierkamp (cant spell his name lol) doing that in a training video i saw a few days ago...

damn lots of options...too many for me hehe

[QuakerOats]

yeah your right..i watched gunther schlierkamp (cant spell his name lol) doing that in a training video i saw a few days ago...

damn lots of options...too many for me hehe

i always want to try those when i see guys do them but it's always on another bodypart day when i see it then i forget to do it and just do barbell close grips, another really cool movement i saw was in Layne Norton's video, he grabbed a 2x4 and put the board across the handles of the dip machine and did pushdowns on it.

[First Blood]

i always want to try those when i see guys do them but it's always on another bodypart day when i see it then i forget to do it and just do barbell close grips, another really cool movement i saw was in Layne Norton's video, he grabbed a 2x4 and put the board across the handles of the dip machine and did pushdowns on it.

i saw bob cicherillo do that in the war of the worlds.....i had forgot about that...will have to try that too.... 

trying new things keeps the training fun

to be honest i really dont like the heavy powerlifitng movements...deadlift, bench press, squats ....i like to isolate more...gives me a better pump which motivates me alot.

[First Blood]

any more opinions?

always looking to learn more...

[tbombz]

any more opinions?

always looking to learn more...

  try hitting the tris from different angles... you can do palms down, palms in, palms up... same movement but different hand position will put more stress on different areas of the tricep.

[First Blood]

  try hitting the tris from different angles... you can do palms down, palms in, palms up... same movement but different hand position will put more stress on different areas of the tricep.

yeah im gonna do that...i have a triceps masterplan now;

pushdowns 4 set10-20reps
cable extensions behind the neck 4sets 8-12reps
one arm pushdowns or machine dips or close grip bench in a machine 4x8-12

im gonna do this for 2months and see what happens

will superset with biceps...damn feel good already just thinking about the pumps i will get... really looking forward to my arm workouts.

[QuakerOats]

try some bodyweight extensions or "tiger dips" as some poeple call them, set up a Smith bar or a loaded bar in a power rack at about waist height and grab it and lower your body bending only at the elbows and reverse direction and press yourself up, like doing a push up but bending only at the elbows, very tough.

[bigbychoice]

Try doing some sort of extension or skull crusher movement to failure. Heavy 8 to 10 reps then move on to close grip bench with no rest and do 8 to 10 reps with as much as you can arms right by your sides. then go to a cable and do push downs with a 5 sec squeeze for as many reps as you can with a fairly heavy weight. Like 6 reps. You tris will get such a huge pump! Now rest like 5 mins. Do two sets of this. I did this and my tris were sore for days! Then they grow like an 1 inch. I did give them a full week to recover though. Just thought I would share.

[mesmorph78]

I wouldnt say they are overrated ..
but if you have a chest that develops easy...
id say cut back on them if you are trying to bring your tris up

[Montague]

I always like (and rely most on) movements I can “feel” working.
CGB just aren’t one of them, so I only do them once in a blue moon – relying more instead on dips.

Dips and CGB put a lot of the workload on the lateral triceps head.
So if you don’t care for one, try the other - you'll still be hitting a similar area.

do you think it would be smart to work triceps with fast pace...moderate weight (8+ reps)...isolation movements...just to save the elbows?

As has been mentioned, extension work will recruit more of the long head of the triceps – the one that accounts for the most upper arm mass.
Also mentioned here, extensions tend to wipe out many people’s elbows over time.

For many trainers – myself included – a great deal of elbow pain can be reduced / eliminated by going behind the head with the weight.
You can apply that to skull-crushers, overhead db ext., etc.

Bodyweight extensions and kneeling cable extensions bother me the least, and I do a version of them in almost every triceps workout.

One thing I’ve noticed with any triceps movement is that lowering the weight more slowly also reduces a bit of the pinching in the elbows. Explode up, but slow down some on the negative.

[D-bol]

not overrated imo...great for adding raw bulk to the entire tricep group...must focus when doing them though, i once dropped a 150 pound bbell on my torso doing close grip bench....not fun

[thewickedtruth]

i would say they're great if done RIGHT! too many people use too narrow a grip and end up putting too much stress and strain on their wrist and elbows due to improper grip width. A close grip tend to be one that keeps your elbows nice and tight to your sides but still keeps your wrist inline with your forearms, etc. for a more efficient and pain free press. My close grip width is about 12 inches...or about my pinky on the ring with zero issues.

[QuakerOats]

not overrated imo...great for adding raw bulk to the entire tricep group...must focus when doing them though, i once dropped a 150 pound bbell on my torso doing close grip bench....not fun

150 pounds!!!!!!! holy shit!!!

[bigbychoice]

I think the problem with CGB is that people try to press the weight like a normal bench with there hands close. There shoulders flare out and it becomes uncomfortable. How ever when the exercise is done correctly your tris will really fell it. Just do not flare your elbows even a little bit.

[pumpster]

I think the problem with CGB is that people try to press the weight like a normal bench with there hands close.

I would say they're great if done RIGHT! too many people use too narrow a grip and end up putting too much stress and strain on their wrist and elbows due to improper grip width.

Like someone else said, there are plenty who don't feel it no matter what the ROM. I find dip machine and flared-elbow pushdowns hit the same lateral and medial heads better.

Definitely worth trying variations of any exercise before giving up on it; try these less known variations of CGBP that are actually better than the usual versions. Use a decline and an E-Z curl bar, which shfits the angle the muscles are hit and is much easier on the wrists.
http://www.myfittribe.com/videos/close-grip-ez-tricep-extension#

Other better versions of this in my opinion are to use machines for CGBP-the old vertical leg press machines while lying underneath, (and some of the newer ones can allow same) or a smith machine. With those machines you have far more leaway in terms of wrist angle because balance and stabilizers aren't issues, and thus the angle it hits the tris can make it more effective.

Also one of the big advantages with machines that's rarely acknowledged is that it's a whole lot safer and thus easier to train to failure, because there's a lot less downside if you get stuck with the weight. Free weights even with spotters aren't necessarily that great because let's face it most spotters don't spot that well, don't make the last few reps as good as they could be, and aren't as safe because the spotter isn't always as attentive as hoped.

This vertical leg press (and some of the newer angled ones where there's room to get under there) are arguably the BEST thing for CGBP both in terms of hitting the muscles and training harder into failure safely, without worry about being stuck with the weight.

[heretostay13]

Using the vertical leg press has always been something I thought was definitely worthwhile to try for close grip, glad to see someone put it into use. Personally I think CGBP are worth doing. Personally this is the way I approach triceps.

Pushdowns
EZ Extensions
then...Close Grip

Triceps are pretty good and hammered by then. It allows me to focus primarily on squeezing my triceps through the movement without much/if any shoulder or inner chest involvement.

[The Apprentice]

my old gym had a vertical leg press with a special handle that one could attach to the platform and do close grip presses, the pump was incredible.

[pumpster]

my old gym had a vertical leg press with a special handle that one could attach to the platform and do close grip presses, the pump was incredible.

Leg press and a machine sliding rail mechanism make this the best version there is. Most haven't tried it. Can also in some cases be done with some of the newer versions.

[MisterMagoo]

i see SO many goddamn guys wasting time doing extensions and kickbacks, skullcrushers and pushdowns, when if they did just 3-5 heavy sets of close-grip from chest to lockout their tris would be twice as big.

the best development my triceps ever got came from heavy board presses and close-grip bench. talk all you want about "hitting all three heads" and shit like that, just do heavy pressing. it'll work.

[The Apprentice]

i see SO many goddamn guys wasting time doing extensions and kickbacks, skullcrushers and pushdowns, when if they did just 3-5 heavy sets of close-grip from chest to lockout their tris would be twice as big.

the best development my triceps ever got came from heavy board presses and close-grip bench. talk all you want about "hitting all three heads" and shit like that, just do heavy pressing. it'll work.

so true, i do olympic lifting three times a week, the fourth time is a "regular" workout when i do some chest, some back, and once in a while throw in 2-3 sets for biceps and triceps.  when i switched over to oly, i feared my arms would shrink to nothingness but it did not happen, now i chuckle at the guys who do 12-16 sets for biceps/triceps and still cannot break 16" and cannot believe i wasted my time as well on all the arms exercises bullshit.

[pumpster]

i see SO many goddamn guys wasting time doing extensions and kickbacks, skullcrushers and pushdowns, when if they did just 3-5 heavy sets of close-grip from chest to lockout their tris would be twice as big.

Crazy generalization made sillier by the fact that you don't have such great development to be congratulating yourself (again) on your wisdom.

Most of the top guys with great arms attribute the arm development primarily to those "silly" isolation exercises like curls and extensions, and all the top BBs do those isolations for most of their workouts including virtually all biceps work and at least 50 percent of triceps. This is fact.That includes Oliva, Coleman, Schwarzenegger, Scott. Coleman's top size exercises are extensions and curls. Mariusz Pudzianowski does those silly exercises and as a result is jacked in ways those other guys in WSM aren't who don't do em.

Also includes most pro football players with guns-they ask the coaches to do those isolation exercises just to get the arms, even though they're not part of the routine used for sports performance. No amount of macho-man mindset to lift heavy on only compound lifting can cover  the same ground, otherwise these guyss wouldn't bother with em.

The prevalent, misguided logic applied by many is to guess that one must go as "heavy" as possible to get development, which is associated with compounds since more weight can be heaved. What the geniuses making that assumption always miss is that the real truth is that working up to heavy on ANY effective exericse leads to size. Anyone seriously believe that someone who works up to 150-200 lb. on preachers and extensions won't be big?   Including kickbacks, which are often  assumed to be just a "finishing" exercise. If they work for you and you eventually work up to heavy kickbacks, you'll have big tris.

This is not someone who should be making blanket assumptions, the development ain't that great to be speaking like it's all figured out.

2 differing schools of thought, represented below: