How to do the Close-Grip Dumbbell Press

Steps

1. Place a dumbbell standing up on a flat bench.
2. Ensuring that the dumbbell stays securely placed at the top of the bench, lie perpendicular to the bench with only your shoulders lying on the surface. Hips should be below the bench and your legs bent with your feet firmly on the floor.
3. Grasp the dumbbell with both hands and hold it straight over your chest at arm's length. Both palms should be pressing against the underside of the sides of the dumbbell. This will be your starting position.
4. Initiate the movement by lowering the dumbbell to your chest.
5. Return to the starting position by extending the elbows.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the close-grip dumbbell press to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.

Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.

Where the instructions come from

The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.