External video — Close Grip Feet Up Bench Press: Demonstration by StrengthLog.
How to do it
- Setup
- Lie on the bench as normal, hands just inside shoulder width on the bar. Instead of feet on the floor, bring both feet up and plant them flat on the bench itself, knees bent.
- Execution
- Unrack and lower the bar to the lower chest/sternum, elbows tracking close to the body — brushing your sides, not flaring out — closer than a standard-grip bench press. Press back up. No leg drive is available with feet on the bench, so brace the core hard to stay stable throughout.
- Common error
- Letting the hips or lower back lift off the bench to compensate for the lost leg drive — keep full-body tension through the core instead. Also watch the elbows creeping wide as the set fatigues, which turns this back into a standard-grip press.
- Feel
- A triceps-dominant press with noticeably less stability than a floor-footed bench press — expect to use less weight than your normal close-grip bench. If the left shoulder sharpens here, this is not the grip to widen — that would defeat the point of the exercise. Instead, drop to a standard-grip bench for that set, or move straight to the rope pushdown slot instead, and flag it.
Hands just inside shoulder width, both feet up on the bench itself (not the floor) — this removes leg drive entirely. Left shoulder: sharp pain here = do NOT widen the grip (that removes the exercise) — drop to standard-grip bench or move to the pushdown slot.