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This isn’t to say that cables are BETTER than free weights or machines…
But I often see cables being treated unfairly online by some segments of the lifting community, usually for the simple fact that they seem “less hardcore” compared to barbells and dumbbells.
However, aside from that less than stellar line of reasoning, I’ve never seen anyone give an actual sound physiological explanation as to why cables are an inferior tool from a hypertrophy training perspective.
At the end of the day they’re simply another form of resistance that allow you to train a given muscle close to failure and progressively overload over time just like any other lifting tool. Your muscles don’t know the difference or care where that resistance is coming from.
No, you don’t NEED cables to build muscle effectively (technically there’s no single tool that you definitively *need*), but they do have the advantage of making it very easy to adjust the line of resistance so you can be very specific about the exact position and resistance profile you’re wanting to train a given muscle with.
Personally my training is a fairly even split between free weight, machine and cable movements, at least for upper body. (I don’t use cables for lower body for the most part)
In my current program I use them to do seated cable chest presses and lateral raises (I include free weight versions of those as well), triceps pushdowns/overhead extensions, pulldowns (overhand/wide grip variation + neutral grip/close grip variation) and cable preacher curls.
(That’s not a complete list – it’s just what I’m doing at the moment. Cable flys, seated rows, rear delt stuff and other cable curl variations also get mixed in. Also a fan of cable shrugs if the weight stack is heavy enough)
What’s your current breakdown between free weights/machines/cables, and what are your personal favorite cable exercises?
#fitness #gym #workout #buildmuscle #bodybuilding
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