In the event you want probably the most well-developed chest possible, the bench press isn’t enough. Sure, big multi-joint lifts are very efficient at putting heaps of meat in your frame, but in the event you actually need to take your muscular development to the subsequent level, you’ll should include some isolation (single-joint) movements to specifically goal individual body parts.
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The cable crossover has been a favourite in bodybuilding circles for many years, and for good reason. This chest flye variation permits you to apply high-tension to your pecs without much involvement from other muscle groups. In the event you’re able to boost your chest development, take a take a look at how and why it’s best to add this time-tested exercise to your routine.
Methods to Do the Cable Crossover
This classic exercise is commonly performed incorrectly after which blamed for poor results or shoulder pain. Execution is of the utmost importance in the event you want the perfect results. Here’s what to do.
Step 1 — Start Between Two Pulleys
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Stand in the midst of a two-pulley station with a single-handle on both sides. Some stations have an adjustable pulley height, which is right to adapt the exercise to your body. Set each pulley around chest-height.
Grab one handle and pull it in toward your shoulder. Keep it near your body as you grab the second handle together with your free hand. Get up tall in the midst of the station. Take a deep breath and flex your abs for stability.
Press the handles straight ahead while rotating your palms to face one another. Stop just before your elbows are locked out. That is the starting position for every rep.
Form Tip: It’s possible you’ll feel unbalanced or unstable, especially in the event you start using heavier weights. Use a staggered stance, with one leg in front of you, for a more stable base of support.
Step 2 — Stretch Your Chest
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Slowly lower the load by reaching your arms out to your sides. Keep your chest up, don’t move on the hips or waist. Maintain a slight bend at your elbows throughout your complete repetition — bending and straightening your arms through the movement turns the exercise right into a press.
Concentrate on feeling your pecs (chest muscles) stretch throughout the range of motion. Your shoulder mobility and chest flexibility will determine the top range of motion. Ideally, aim to go until your elbows are roughly in keeping with your shoulders or as deep as your mobility allows without losing muscular tension.
Form Tip: Don’t deal with excessively driving your elbows backwards into an extreme stretch. You’ll risk joint strain and injury, and won’t have the ability to generate enough force for the exercise to be efficient.
Step 3 — Bring Your Arms to Full Contraction
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Flex your pecs as you bring your arms to the middle. Stop just before your hands touch to maintain tension on the muscle.
Your arms must be pointed straight ahead at roughly chest-height. Squeeze your chest as hard as possible within the contracted position. Return to the stretched position and repeat the method for extra repetitions.
Form Tip: Only your arms should move through the exercise. Make certain to not cheat by bending forward on the waist or rolling your shoulders forward. Those adjustments might let you move a heavier weight, however it’s on the expense of your shoulder joint health because your shoulders are potentially vulnerable within the stretched position.
Cable Crossover Mistakes to Avoid
Like many chest exercises, the cable crossover is susceptible to several ego-based mistakes. These can result in less results and a greater likelihood of injuries. Let’s take a take a look at these potential traps.
Pressing the Weight
This will occur either by letting your ego dictate the load used or by simply losing concentration during a set. In each cases, it drifts away from the aim of the movement.
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It’s sometimes too easy, or too tempting, to change the lift’s mechanics in order that it turns right into a press somewhat than a flye motion. In the event you bend your arms an excessive amount of when the load begins to maneuver, you’ll recruit your triceps and, to a lesser extent, the shoulder muscles.
It is a blunder since the aim of the exercise is to isolate the chest as much as possible and never use assistance from other muscles to maneuver the load.
Avoid It: Your hands should move in a large arc, from in-line together with your shoulders to almost meeting in the center. You shouldn’t be driving your hands forward like a bench press or standing push-up. Start the lift together with your elbows barely bent and keep your elbow angle the identical during your complete lift.
Overstretching the Shoulder Joint
The cable crossover shouldn’t turn right into a weighted stretch. In the event you lose control, the cable’s tension can pull your hands too far back and extend your shoulders backwards, where the joints are at their most vulnerable.
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In the event you’re not mobile enough, this will put unnecessary stress on the shoulder joint. Due to the constant tension applied by the cable, going right into a super-deep stretch won’t be needed to properly stimulate muscle growth — it can be compensated by strong contraction.
Avoid It: Decelerate the eccentric (lowering) portion and at all times use a manageable weight. This ensures that you simply’re on top of things and in a position to feel consistent muscular tension.
Losing Posture
In the event you use a weight that is just too heavy or push well-past the purpose when fatigue sets in, you risk losing your posture and letting your shoulders roll forwards. This is commonly done instinctively so the shoulders can assist the chest.
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Unfortunately, internally rotating the shoulders in that position is kind of dangerous. It decreases the anatomical space for the various tendons and ligaments that undergo the shoulder joint, which leads to possible inflammation and tendonitis within the biceps, pecs, or shoulders. It’s also a threat to the delicate rotator cuff.
Furthermore, it can decrease the chest stretch, which might decrease the muscle growth stimulus because a stretched muscle under load has the potential to grow more. (1)
Avoid It: Keep your shoulder blades pulled down and back for a stable shoulder position. Stand tall together with your chest up and “proud.” Maintain that posture at some stage in the exercise.
Advantages of the Cable Crossover
The cable crossover is an isolation exercise that permits you to really deal with the chest. But there’s icing on the cake due to the adjustable pulley station: you possibly can adjust the pulley’s height and the cables provide constant tension throughout the lift, unlike other exercises corresponding to the dumbbell flye.
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The cable crossover has one primary goal — muscle growth — however it is achieved through different means than a compound exercise just like the bench press, and offers its own unique advantages.
Tension Through a Long Range of Motion
In the event you want optimal muscle-building results, you’ll eventually should add variety to your training with different sorts of exercises, rep schemes, or training techniques. (2)
The cable crossover is helpful since it challenges the muscle each the lengthened range — due to the deep stretch — and the height contraction where tension continues to be applied at the highest of the lift.
Dumbbell flye variations, for instance, typically have reduced tension in the highest position as a result of the decreased force of gravity against the weights.
Developing the Mind-Muscle Connection
Due to the constant tension applied throughout the entire range of motion, the cable crossover is a incredible exercise to develop the mind-muscle connection. You’ll be able to really isolate and deal with the chest within the shortened and lengthened range.
Having a greater mind-muscle connection is shown to yield superior muscle growth. (3) Squeezing at the highest and pausing on each rep can be a robust catalyst for constructing muscle and constructing a robust mind-muscle connection.
Versatility
One major advantage of the cable pulley station, in comparison with a dumbbell or machine flye, is customization. You should utilize quite a lot of hand positions or pulling angles, and adjust the load in small increments.
This permits you to add variation to the exercise and find the right setting for you to actually feel your chest working. You can even adjust your stance and body position contained in the station to seek out specific cable angles that fit your individual frame.
Muscles Worked By the Cable Crossover
The cable crossover is a single-joint (isolation) exercise that could be some of the effective ways to directly goal the chest if properly done. However the body is a fancy machine, and no exercise can really “isolate” a single muscle by itself. Other muscles will at all times be recruited to some extent.
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On this case, while the chest is actually emphasized, nearby muscles may also be activated when performing the cable crossover.
Pectoralis Major
Commonly referred to as the chest, the pecs are the most important and strongest pressing muscles within the upper body. The pecs attach to the upper arm, along the clavicle, the sternum, and the upper ribs. In the course of the cable crossover, this muscle is principally recruited through arm adduction (pulling the arms toward your centerline). The pecs also work to internally rotate the upper arm.
Anterior Deltoid
The shoulder muscle consists of three separate heads — the anterior (front), the lateral (side), and the posterior (rear). In the course of the cable crossover, the anterior head assists the chest with internal rotation and adduction of the humerus (upper arm).
Biceps Brachii
This two-headed muscle is attached to the upper arm after which goes through the shoulder to the scapula (shoulder blade). It’s a crucial muscle within the shoulder complex and helps to stabilize the shoulder joint through the cable crossover. The biceps are recruited because they’re answerable for flexing (bending) your arms.
Because your arms should maintain a bend through the exercise, the biceps are working statically through the exercise. You need to not actively bend or straighten your arms through the cable crossover because it can shift focus away out of your pecs.
Who Should Do the Cable Crossover
Anyone who wants to emphasise their chest development can include this exercise of their routine. This staple exercise is right for muscle-building purposes.
Aesthetics Aficionados
In the event you’re all for constructing an aesthetic physique, the cable crossover is an excellent fit. An isolation exercise is an excellent way of bringing up an underdeveloped chest while helping to create a symmetrical upper body.
If it is advisable emphasize chest development with minimum involvement of other muscles, this can be one in every of your go-to movements.
Methods to Program the Cable Crossover
Since it’s a single-joint exercise, this exercise shouldn’t be used with relatively heavy weights with the intention to avoid injuries and reap probably the most of its advantages.
Use the cable crossover as a secondary exercise after your foremost pressing movement, as a finisher at the top of your chest workout, or (after a radical warm-up to arrange your shoulder joints) as the primary exercise of the session to pre-exhaust your chest for a fair more intense workout.
Moderate Weight, Moderate Repetitions
Using the usual hypertrophy scheme of three to 4 sets of eight to 12 repetitions can be a reliable technique to construct your chest. Accumulating volume on this range can be helpful for hypertrophy. (4)
Low Weight, High Repetition
Sometimes you simply wish to feel the burn. Doing two to a few sets of 15 to twenty repetitions could be just as helpful for hypertrophy, and the longer time under tension might even be higher for developing an excellent mind-muscle connection and really feeling your chest. That is the right scheme for a scorching finisher.
Cable Crossover Variations
The cable crossover is great since the pulley station permits you to modify your training in mere seconds. Simply changing the cable’s height will end in a rather different range of motion and different muscular targeting.
High-to-Low Cable Crossover
For this variation, adjust the cable station in order that the attachment is higher than your shoulders. The upper it can be, the more you’ll emphasize training the lengthened (stretched) position.
Position yourself such as you were to perform the usual crossover, but as a substitute of ending the lift together with your hands in front of your chest, aim to bring your hands around your belly button or belt-line.
Low-to-High Cable Crossover
Now, we’re doing the other by setting the pulleys at their lowest point. Stand tall and balanced together with your chest up, like every other cable crossover.
Bring your arms upwards at around face-level. This motion will recruit more the clavicular portion of the pecs (upper chest), much like incline pressing. Because the upper chest is underdeveloped in lots of lifters, it’s best to likely give this variation a go, especially in case your chest session didn’t have any incline or overhead training.
Cable Crossover Alternatives
In the event you don’t have a pulley station or simply wish to spice things up, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Listed below are the perfect alternatives to the cable crossover.
Dumbbell Flye
The classic chest flye is free weight alternative to the crossover. Arrange a bench, grab a pair of dumbbells, and perform the movement very much like the cable crossover, but lying down on a flat bench. Because dumbbells are relatively unwieldy in comparison with cables, this alternative can require more shoulder joint stability, which could be useful for constructing joint health and injury prevention. (5)
This classic exercise could be very interesting since it offers a distinct curve of resistance than the cable crossover. The moment arm is great within the stretched position, but nearly nonexistent within the contracted position. This alternative will deal with the lengthened range, which could be helpful for exercise variety, muscle growth, and mobility.
Pec-Deck
The great old machine flye has the good thing about requiring no balance in any respect and even less coordination. Here, you possibly can solely deal with your chest contraction because you might be seated and fully supported. Simply sit within the machine and perform the flye movement.
The guided component permits you to use one unique trick: as a substitute of closing your hands and gripping the handle firmly, just place it in your palms with fingers open. You need to have the ability to feel your chest contract higher since the relaxed grip will negate the irradiation phenomenon — also referred to as Sherrington’s law, which means that a contracted muscle may also contract the encompassing muscles. (6)
FAQs
I feel my biceps loads through the exercise. What’s occurring?
Your biceps can be tense through the exercise because your arms must be barely bent with the muscle contracted, but in case your biceps are fatiguing before your chest, that’s not normal.
Step one can be to lighten the load and make certain you’re not actively bending your arms through the exercise. Also, attempt to think that your hands and forearms don’t exist. You may be activating your arms an excessive amount of by squeezing the handle too hard. Solely deal with your chest contracting and drawing your elbows and upper arms close together.
My shoulders hurt after I perform this exercise. What should I do?
If it really hurts, then it’s best to stop the exercise and possibly seek the advice of a medical skilled. A point of pain or discomfort is unfortunately certain to occur in some unspecified time in the future during your lifting journey. It doesn’t necessarily indicate an injury, however it could.
Make certain you mostly use perfect form. Puff your chest out and keep your shoulder blades back to guard your rotator cuff muscles. In the event you start rolling your shoulders forward as a result of fatigue or heavy weights, then you definately’re opening the door to a possible problem.
Wrap-Up
The cable crossover is one in every of the few exercises commonly related to bodybuilding. It’s fundamental purpose is to trigger muscle growth within the chest — and it does that job so well, it’s been a muscle-building staple for many years. If constructing a fuller, more muscular chest is in your to-do list, the cable crossover should find yourself in your bodybuilding toolbox.
References
- Nunes JP, Schoenfeld BJ, Nakamura M, Ribeiro AS, Cunha PM, Cyrino ES. Does stretch training induce muscle hypertrophy in humans? A review of the literature. Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 2020 May;40(3):148-156. doi: 10.1111/cpf.12622. Epub 2020 Feb 5. PMID: 31984621.
- Krzysztofik M, Wilk M, Wojdała G, Gołaś A. Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Dec 4;16(24):4897. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16244897. PMID: 31817252; PMCID: PMC6950543.
- Calatayud, Joaquin & Vinstrup, Jonas & Jakobsen, Markus & Sundstrup, Emil & Brandt, Mikkel & Jay, Kenneth & Colado, Juan C. & Andersen, Lars. (2016). Importance of mind-muscle connection during progressive resistance training. European journal of applied physiology. 116. 10.1007/s00421-015-3305-7.
- Schoenfeld BJ, Contreras B, Krieger J, Grgic J, Delcastillo K, Belliard R, Alto A. Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy but Not Strength in Trained Men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019 Jan;51(1):94-103. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001764. PMID: 30153194; PMCID: PMC6303131.
- Jaggi A, Alexander S. Rehabilitation for Shoulder Instability – Current Approaches. Open Orthop J. 2017 Aug 31;11:957-971. doi: 10.2174/1874325001711010957. PMID: 28979601; PMCID: PMC5611703.
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Gontijo, L. B., Pereira, P. D., Neves, C. D., Santos, A. P., Machado, D., & Bastos, V. H. (2012). Evaluation of strength and irradiated movement pattern resulting from trunk motions of the proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. Rehabilitation research and practice, 2012, 281937. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/281937
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