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How necessary are they for our workouts?
Cables
- Thread starter the_alcatraz
- Start date
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
i use 'em for pulldowns and triceps. that's bout it
I love reverse grip cable curls. My favorite forearm exercsie. Also pulldown abds and pull throughs are killer.
nzrodney
Banned
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
Banned
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.
Though I understand your enthusiam for variety and range of motion, I must advocate the usage of free weights over cables.
However, it is important to also understand that cables have their place in bodybuilding - with some, not all bodybuilders.
Cables are best for triceps IMO
not very. I could get along without them completely.
Come on bro. I seen you doing standing leg curls with those fuzzy ankle straps
Your hammies looked ripped in those spandex shorts too lololl.The only thing I am doing wiht cables right now are pulldown abs a couple times a week. I know a lot of bros love tricep pushdowns using the cables. These have never done anything for my tri development. Pumps only. I guess they would be a benefit if you are a powerlifter who puts tremendous stress on your tris with all that shirt work and heavy lockouts. Active recovery maybe? Or maybe it's just me and I haven't gave them a fair shake.
Come on bro. I seen you doing standing leg curls with those fuzzy ankle straps
The only thing I am doing wiht cables right now are pulldown abs a couple times a week. I know a lot of bros love tricep pushdowns using the cables. These have never done anything for my tri development. Pumps only. I guess they would be a benefit if you are a powerlifter who puts tremendous stress on your tris with all that shirt work and heavy lockouts. Active recovery maybe? Or maybe it's just me and I haven't gave them a fair shake.
I am about to blast again. I was using them last couple of blasts for forearms, same as you. I wouldn't use them for triceps. I'd hope I could find another tricep exercise that I could still progress on before having to go to cables.
Dude!! I hear ya on that. It's bad enough every time I workout that I come home exhausted and just want to sleep (I usually need to go to bed early or sleep in if possible - just need more sleep on those nights)...but when the whole blast is over I am SO ready to take a week off then 2 more just easing back in and ramping up!
CGBP, RGBP, french press, skull crushers...
point?
I should mention that the movement on my "skullcrushers" are more like a PJR pullover. I use an inclne bench (I've used flat in the past), but on the movement, I actually bring the bar down behind my head with my upper arms at greater than 90 degree angle to the floor.
Now that I've mentioned them, PJR pullovers are a great tricep exercise too.
I wouldn't recommend cables for building mass in the triceps. Of course if you're not looking for mass...
By the time I've finished my chest and shoulder exercises, my elbows are ready for triceps exercise.
Ceo and I follow the same split. It is a two way split and we rotate through three different exercises for each body part. We are only using one exercise for each body part per session. Split A is Chest, Shoulders, Tris, Back Width, Back Thickness in that order. Split B is Bis, Forearms, Calves, Hams, Quads in that order. By the time I have taken my Chest and Shoulders past the point of failure I can hit my tris with one warm up set to get the movement pattern down and then usually one all out work set depending on the exercise. Do you remember what I wrote about calves with the one big rest pause set? We train every body part this way. Training like this you only use the money exercises so to speak. Very little isolation with the exception of bis, forearms, and calves. Cables do not really fit into this routine.
Haven't tried those. On what I do, my shoulders stay still...everything above the elbows is still. I bring the bar (ez-curl) behind my head so that the back of my hands touch the top of the incline bench. Never had it bother my shoulders.
you can fit anything into any routine bro...you gotta be open-minded about these things and do what works out for you...
you can fit anything into any routine bro...you gotta be open-minded about these things and do what works out for you...
It's really more about what works better/best. Cables rank low on that scale.
If you're using cables and it's working for you, keep using them.
nzrodney
Banned
CEO, you & Southernlord have got some interesting splits going on there & I'm sure, because they almost force you into the big compound movements & "money" exercises, that they work well for you. Maybe the point you might be missing here in this thread, is that using cables in your routine, also forces you into looking at form & IMO they can be the catalyst into discovering how constant tension on the muscle can be so good at stimulating growth. I guess I was until recent injury, guilty of just putting them into a workout as a finisher or at the beginning to exhust the muscle, but since I have been using them more I have had better arm growth in the last few months, than I have had in the last 8 years training. Also the use on constant positive & negative tension has made me change the way I do Leg Press, Hack Squats, bench press, shoulder press etc. In other words I'm not locking out the lifts as much & in some cases I'm just doing partial reps to keep the tension on. If you are a BBer, I think you can achieve some interesting results with this in mind.
What works for me is always challenging myself with new ways and ranges of motion. If that includes cables, then hayy, why not...been doing this for a long time, shit gets boring if you do the same thing every day for ten years...
someone in this thread mentioned how cables are the best exercises for negatives...i dnt think that very far from the truth...it can also be super strict form with cables
viciousness
New member
Cables are crucial to completely crush certain muscles after using freeweights to me, atleast shoulders and tri's and cable ab's JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS H CHRIST those will first degree murder your whole abdominal region
drsketch
Banned
I think they are an option for a lot of people.
Are they absolutely necessary, in a sense where you will NOT grow without them? No.
But, they help...
Are they absolutely necessary, in a sense where you will NOT grow without them? No.
But, they help...
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