maratoolIncline Cable Flye
How to do the incline cable flye
- To get yourself into the starting position, set the pulleys at the floor level (lowest level possible on the machine that is below your torso).
- Place an incline bench (set at 45 degrees) in between the pulleys, select a weight on each one and grab a pulley on each hand.
- With a handle on each hand, lie on the incline bench and bring your hands together at arms length in front of your face. This will be your starting position.
- With a slight bend of your elbows (in order to prevent stress at the biceps tendon), lower your arms out at both sides in a wide arc until you feel a stretch on your chest. Breathe in as you perform this portion of the movement. Tip: Keep in mind that throughout the movement, the arms should remain stationary. The movement should only occur at the shoulder joint.
- Return your arms back to the starting position as you squeeze your chest muscles and exhale. Hold the contracted position for a second. Tip: Make sure to use the same arc of motion used to lower the weights.
- Repeat the movement for the prescribed amount of repetitions.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
How this movement works
One joint moves, and it moves the load away from the body. With nothing recruited to assist, the target muscle reaches its own limit rather than the limit of the weakest link in a chain — which makes this useful for adding volume after the heavy compound work, not for opening a session.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A cable holds tension for the whole range, including the point where a free weight would go slack. Moving the pulley changes the angle the resistance arrives from without changing the movement.
Every exercise using:Cable
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Incline Dumbbell Bench With Palms Facing Indumbbell
- Incline Dumbbell Fly'sbench + dumbbell
- Incline Push-Upbody only
- Leg-Over Floor Presskettlebell
- Leverage Chest Pressmachine
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 105 chest exercises in this database, 22 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.