Close Grip Lat Pulldown: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Benefits

The close grip lat pulldown is a cable pulldown done with your hands close together, usually on a V-bar handle with your palms facing each other, though a narrow overhand or underhand grip on a straight bar counts too. Compared with the classic wide-grip version, it lets your elbows travel down in front of your body rather than out to the sides, which gives you a longer pull and a stronger, more comfortable position for a lot of people's shoulders.

It's my go-to pulldown for anyone whose shoulders grumble on a wide bar, and it's a handy way to load your lats heavier than you could with bodyweight chin ups. If you want the full rundown on the standard exercise, read our lat pulldown guide. This page sticks to the narrow versions: how to set them up, what changes, and when they're the better pick.

Close grip options

There are three ways to do a close grip pulldown, and each one shifts the feel slightly.

• V-bar (neutral grip). The most popular choice. Clip a V-shaped double handle to the high pulley so your palms face each other about 15cm apart. It's the most shoulder-friendly option and the one most people can pull heaviest.
• Narrow overhand (pronated) grip. Hold a straight lat bar with your hands about shoulder-width apart, palms facing away. It feels closest to a standard pulldown but with a longer range at the bottom.
• Narrow underhand (supinated) grip. Same hand spacing, palms facing you. This brings in the most biceps and mimics a chin up on a cable stack.
• Parallel or close neutral bar. Some lat bars have angled or parallel handles built in. They feel like a slightly wider V-bar and suit people with broad shoulders.

How to do a close grip lat pulldown

You'll need a high pulley with a V-bar or straight bar. A dedicated lat station works, but so does any multi gym with a top pulley and a thigh pad.

1. Set the thigh pad. Adjust it so your thighs sit snugly underneath with your feet flat. It stops you lifting off the seat once the weight gets heavy.
2. Take the handle. Stand, grab the V-bar (or the bar at shoulder width), then sit down with your arms fully straight overhead. You should feel a stretch down the sides of your back.
3. Lean back slightly. Tilt your torso back around 10 to 20 degrees and lift your chest. This gives the handle a clear path past your chin.
4. Start with your shoulder blades. Before your elbows bend, pull your shoulder blades down away from your ears. Think of it as a tiny shrug in reverse.
5. Drive your elbows to your hips. Pull the handle down towards your upper chest, keeping your elbows tucked in front of your ribs rather than flaring out. Stop when the handle touches your sternum or just above it.
6. Pause and return slowly. Hold for a second at the bottom, then let the handle rise over two to three seconds until your arms are straight and your lats are fully stretched.

Breathe out as you pull and in as the handle goes back up.

Muscles worked

The close grip pulldown trains the same vertical pulling muscles as any pulldown, with a bit more help from your arms.

• Latissimus dorsi. Still the main mover. Because your elbows travel down in front of your body, the lats work through a long range from full stretch overhead to elbows by your ribs.
• Biceps and brachialis. These work harder on a narrow grip than a wide one, especially with palms facing you. Researchers testing the front pulldown found that pre-tiring the biceps cut the number of reps people could do, and the narrow grip felt hardest of all (Vilaça-Alves and colleagues, 2014).
• Lower traps and rhomboids. They pull your shoulder blades down and together, which is why that first "shoulder blades down" cue matters.
• Rear delts and teres major. They assist the lats in pulling your upper arm down and back.
• Core and forearms. Your trunk braces to stop you rocking, and your grip holds the handle the whole set.

Close grip vs wide grip lat pulldown

Gym wisdom says wide grips build width and close grips build thickness. The research doesn't really back that up. A 2025 study had 40 trained men pull at 70% of their max across seven pulldown variations, including narrow pronated, narrow neutral, supinated and wide grips, and found no significant difference in lat activation between any of them (Electromyographic analysis of lat pulldown grip variations). A 2026 review of 23 EMG studies came to a similar view, finding the effect of grip width on the pulldown inconsistent, while pulling the bar to the front of your body did matter (narrative review of latissimus dorsi EMG).

So the real differences come down to feel and mechanics rather than which part of your back grows:

	Close grip	Wide grip
Elbow path	Down and in front of the ribs	Down and out to the sides
Range of motion	Longer, handle reaches the sternum	Shorter, bar stops at the upper chest
Biceps involvement	Higher	Lower
Shoulder comfort	Easier for most people, especially neutral grip	Can pinch if you go too wide
Load	Usually a little heavier	Usually a little lighter

My take: if wide pulldowns leave your shoulders sore or you never feel your lats at the bottom, switch to the V-bar as your main pulldown and keep the wide grip as a secondary option. If you're happy on the wide bar, there's no evidence you're missing out, so add the close grip for variety rather than because you need to.

Benefits

It's kinder to the shoulders. A neutral grip keeps your upper arm in a more natural position than a wide overhand bar, which is why it's a common swap for people with cranky shoulders.

You get a longer pull. The narrow hand position lets the handle come right down to your chest with your elbows behind your torso, so your lats work through more range per rep than on a wide bar.

It builds towards chin ups. The narrow underhand version trains the same pattern as a chin up with a load you can adjust in 2.5kg to 5kg steps, which makes it a sensible stepping stone if you can't yet lift your own bodyweight.

It adds back and arm work in one move. With the biceps doing more, it's an efficient pick for short sessions where you won't have time for separate curls.

Common mistakes

Leaning back too far. Once your torso drops past about 30 degrees, the pulldown becomes a row and you lose the vertical pull. If you need to lie back to move the stack, the weight's too heavy. A seated cable row is the right exercise for that horizontal pattern.

Curling the handle down. Because your biceps are in a strong position on a close grip, it's easy to turn the rep into an arm curl. Lead with your elbows and keep your wrists straight, almost like your hands are hooks.

Shrugging at the top. Letting your shoulders ride up to your ears at the top of each rep takes the lats out of the start of the pull. Keep a slight downward pull on the shoulder blades even at full stretch.

Dropping the head forward. Some people duck their chin to get the handle past their face. Lean back slightly and lift your chest instead, so the handle comes down in front of your nose rather than your head going round it.

Rushing the way up. Letting the stack slam back up wastes the stretched part of each rep. Take two to three seconds on the return.

Variations

Single-arm cable pulldown. Attach a D-handle to the high pulley and pull one arm at a time, either seated or half-kneeling. You'll notice if one side is weaker, and you can rotate your torso slightly towards the working side for an even bigger stretch. Do the weaker arm first and match the reps on the stronger side.

Band pulldown at home. Loop a resistance band over a sturdy door anchor or pull-up bar, kneel underneath and pull both ends to your chest with your hands close together. It won't match a heavy cable stack, but it's a good warm-up or a way to train the pattern when you're away from the gym.

Chin up. The bodyweight version of the narrow underhand pulldown. Once you can pull roughly your bodyweight on the cable for 6 to 8 reps, try a few chin ups. If you're not there yet, negative pull ups and band-assisted reps bridge the gap.

Straight-arm pulldown. A useful finisher straight after close grip pulldowns because it hits the lats with almost no biceps involvement. Our straight-arm pulldown guide covers the setup.

Home gear. If you're training at home, a compact multi gym with a high pulley and V-bar handles all of these. The HOMCOM 65kg multi gym is one budget option we've looked at, and the best multi gyms roundup covers sturdier machines with heavier stacks.

Sets and reps

• Muscle building: 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps, twice a week. Rest 60 to 90 seconds.
• Strength: 4 sets of 6 to 8 reps with a heavier load and 2 minutes of rest. The V-bar is the best grip for this because you can usually move the most weight on it.
• Learning the movement: 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps with a light weight, a one-second pause at your chest and a three-second return.

A simple way to pair it: open your back session with wide grip pulldowns for 3 sets, then follow with 3 sets of close grip pulldowns and finish with a row. Add weight once you can get the top of your rep range on every set with the chest-up position intact.

Recommended reads

1. Lat pulldown: how to do it, muscles worked and grip variations
2. Seated cable row: how to do it and muscles worked
3. Straight-arm pulldown: technique and benefits
4. HOMCOM 65kg multi gym review
5. The best multi gyms in the UK