Cables

[the_alcatraz]

How necessary are they for our workouts?

 

[dabuffguy]

like cable flys and cable rows?

I love medium weight cable rows after kicking ass at heavy bb rows. Get that nice concentrated action in the back.

cable flys? meh, I do them sometimes or db flys.

 

[SaiBoT]

For variety, motivation, it's kinda of boring the same stuff over and over again. Providing you have a solid free weight routines, throwing a cable movement it's added benefit and different way to stimulate growth... specially if you want to emphasize a particular area... It's also good for pre-fatigue although I prefer to say pre-activation so you can bring the blood and also your mind to that muscle

 

[Devastation]

i use 'em for pulldowns and triceps. that's bout it

 

[SouthernLord]

I love reverse grip cable curls. My favorite forearm exercsie. Also pulldown abds and pull throughs are killer.

 

[the_alcatraz]

i use 'em for pulldowns and triceps. that's bout it

+1

Pretty much the best usuage for them is triceps

 

[nzrodney]

Absolutely necessary in any training program. The beauty with using cables, is that you keep continuous tension on the muscle being worked, both in the positive & negative phase. Due to a bicep tendon displacement, I have been using cables heavily in my arm workout. There are many variations of the curl that you can employ. Close grip, wide grip, reverse grip, standing close to the rack, standing away from the rack, between the legs, & thats just for biceps. Then theres forearm work , triceps etc. Dont let people tell you these exercises are just for finishing your arm workout. You can still use heavy weights & achieve muscle failure on cables & its much harder than using, say a barbell, if you get your form proper & take advantage of the continuous tension on the muscle.

 

[the_alcatraz]

I love reverse grip cable curls. My favorite forearm exercsie. Also pulldown abds and pull throughs are killer.

I do that with dumbells

 

[the_alcatraz]

Absolutely necessary in any training program. The beauty with using cables, is that you keep continuous tension on the muscle being worked, both in the positive & negative phase. Due to a bicep tendon displacement, I have been using cables heavily in my arm workout. There are many variations of the curl that you can employ. Close grip, wide grip, reverse grip, standing close to the rack, standing away from the rack, between the legs, & thats just for biceps. Then theres forearm work , triceps etc. Dont let people tell you these exercises are just for finishing your arm workout. You can still use heavy weights & achieve muscle failure on cables & its much harder than using, say a barbell, if you get your form proper & take advantage of the continuous tension on the muscle.

Nice!

I like how you takled about "negative" reps and continuous tension on the muscle. Very strong points.

However, don't you think you can substitute pretty much any cable exercise with a dumbell and damn excellent form?

 

[nzrodney]

Nice!

I like how you takled about "negative" reps and continuous tension on the muscle. Very strong points.

However, don't you think you can substitute pretty much any cable exercise with a dumbell and damn excellent form?

No I dont believe that you can quite replicate the full range of motion under tension with a dumbbell. You know that it is very hard to keep that tension on the muscle even using very strict form. You usually just miss or have a "blank" space at the very top or the bottom of the curl & normally you will fail on the positive before the negative, so unless you use a spotter you cannot achieve this easily.