tight push-ups are a great addition to your workout routine that can help bulk up your arms, but are you sure you're doing the exercise correctly?
Many variations of the classic push-up effectively build muscle and upper body strength, but for best results, it's important to know the tricks on how to properly perform the push-up. movement and achieve optimal muscle gains in record time. In this article, we explain to you how to do tight push-ups!
Tight push-ups, what are they?
Movement
The tight pushup is a variation of the pushup that focuses on strengthening the triceps. Settle down by placing your palms on the floor with your thumbs touching each other.
Spread your legs back so that only your toes are touching the floor and your body is straight. Bend your elbows slightly to maintain tension in your triceps. Keeping your body straight, slowly lower yourself as far as possible without touching the ground.
Pause, then come back up to the starting position without locking your elbows. Repeat for the desired repetitions. Keep your elbows bent at your sides throughout the set. Do not lock your elbows: this relieves the triceps and makes the exercise less effective. The close-grip push-up is a good finishing exercise or a second exercise in a superset.
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Advantages
tight push-ups are for the triceps. This version can be facilitated by placing your knees on the floor and your hands on araised surface or around a raised horizontal bar. If you are strong and fit enough, you can increase the difficulty by elevating your feet on a riser or bench.
Whatever type of push-up you are doing and even if you think it is easy, for optimal results and lower risk of injury, it is essential to do them with the correct form. The goal of the exercise is to drop as low as possible and then climb back up, but if your form starts to break at any point, it's best to shorten the descent and build up the necessary strength for a full range of motion.
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Tight push-ups and wide push-ups: what are the differences?
wide push-ups consist of placing the palms wider than shoulder width. Try turning your palms slightly outward for a more comfortable upward thrust.
Perform a wide push-up in a manner similar to a regular push-up: place your hands wider than shoulder-width apart (about 1.5 times wider) and keep your fingers pointing forward. Extend your legs fully behind you and tuck the soles of your feet into the ground.
Tighten your core, keep your back flat and your buttocks tight. Slowly lower until your chest touches the floor, keeping your elbows straight above your wrists. As soon as your chest hits the floor, step off the floor and return to the starting position with your elbows fully extended.
An article about it: Wide grip push-ups: the right technique and the benefits
3 tips for successful tight push-ups
Never forget plank sheathing
Like any good push-up, a close-grip push-up starts with a solid plank form The stiffer your torso and the more straight line you create from shoulders to feet, the more you'll have to really lift, so your tight push-ups are more effective.
A sagging core means you're not straining your muscles as much. So start with a solid plank and squeeze your abs and glutes to keep them strong throughout each rep.
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The diamond grip is not your best friend
You will see a lot of people bring their hands together so that they touch and form a diamond shape; they think it's the only way to boost their triceps with tight push-ups.
Remember: your triceps are responsible for extending your arm at the elbow, so whatever you need to do on your push-ups to prioritize your triceps is to keep your elbows from flaring out so you don't strain your chest too much. To do this, simply place your hands a little closer together than shoulder width apart.
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Keep your elbows closed
The key thing that differentiates thetight pushup from a standard pushupis what you are going to do with your elbows. To make sure the triceps push the press up, we want to keep your chest as unstressed as possible.
To do this, keep your elbows practically glued to your chest both as you lower into the rep and, more importantly, as you press up. Try to let your arms move only in the sagittal plane (so in front of you). The longer you stick to this, the more you'll isolate your triceps for maximum growth.
For even more results: Bicep push-ups: 3 variations that will strengthen your arms
How to progress with tight push-ups?
Mixing with other variations
You don't have to do tight push-ups every day to get results! Start by doing these variations several times a week on non-consecutive days to help you get better at push-ups and learn how to do more push-ups. Here are some additional tips:
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If you can't do push-ups, try incline push-ups and static push-ups: these are a great type of push-up for beginners. The higher the surface, the easier the movement. You can even do them with your hands pressed against a wall. Perform three sets, resting one minute between sets. When you can do three sets of 10 reps at a given height, lower your hands and repeat the process.
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Practice the plank with straight arms : After your workout, hold the top push-up position with perfect form for as long as you can. Work up to holding it for 30 seconds to a minute.
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If you can do three to six push-ups, try low-rep sets and negative reps: do it up to a dozen times, either directly (resting 30-60 seconds between sets), throughout your workout or throughout the day at random intervals Drop to the floor, return to plank position, and repeat, for a total of three slow reps.
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If you can do 15 or more pushups, try decline pushups, resistance band pushups, spiderman pushups and plyo pushups - they all challenge your muscles and work the muscle groups adjacent to the triceps, as with tight push-ups.
For spiderman push-ups in particular, start in a plank position, swing your right leg out to the side to bring your right knee to your right elbow as you bend your arms down so your chest is a few inches off the floor.
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Using strength training accessories
tight push-ups are therefore generally performed with body weight, which allows you to train anywhere and progress at your own pace . But once you manage to do more than 30 in a row, how do you continue to evolve and increase your strength?
To increase the difficulty of tight push-ups, we recommend that you Use our Military weighted vest load 50KG™ : you modulate the additional load between 5 and 50 kg, which gives you a good margin of progress! By adding resistance, you challenge your muscles much more effectively than with simple bodyweight exercises.
This weighted vest helps you maintain enormous freedom, since you still don't need a gym membership to train with resistance: you remain free to exercise at home, at your own pace, while exercising as never before. And this weighted vest can be used for all your other movements: squats, pull-ups, various push-ups, etc.
In summary: Tight push-ups
The tight push-ups therefore allow you to target the triceps more, compared to other variations of push-ups. They are often contrasted with wide-grip push-ups, which target the upper body muscles differently.
They are extremely simple to perform, but you have to follow a form of impeccable execution to obtain all the muscular benefits of this exercise: solid sheathing, no diamond grip and well closed elbows.
If you cannot execute the movement correctly, don't panic: you can simplify the exercise or even make it more difficult with our Military weighted vest load 50KG™. Don't hesitate any longer and get started with the exercise of tight push-ups!
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