Standing Cable Fly

If you want more definition in your chest, you should add standing cable flys to your chest workouts.

The Right Way to Do Standing Cable Flys

Before you start this exercise, choose the amount of weight you want to use. If this is your first time to do standing cable flys, start light. Beginning with a small amount of weight will allow you to get used to performing this exercise. Once you've selected how much weight you're going to use, stand in the middle of the crossover machine. When you grab the cable handles, your arms will be extended out from you. This is how you want to start the exercise.

As you begin to pull the cables down, make sure you keep your arms straight. This is important because it will keep all of the tension of the exercise on your chest. Once the cables meet in front of your body, hold this position for a moment. After you pause, you can begin returning the cables to their starting position. During the upward movement of this exercise, use the same controlled pace as you did for the downward portion.

How Effective are Standing Cable Flys?

If you want to sculpt your chest, cable flys will help you accomplish this goal. While exercises like the bench press are useful for building overall strength, cable flys are excellent for making visible changes because they allow you to:

  • Isolate your pectoral muscles: When you bench press, you're using several other stabilizing muscles. While compound exercises like the bench press are important for building strength, these exercises can't provide the same definition benefits that isolation exercises like cable flys offer.
  • Work out safely: There are quite a few things that can go wrong when you're bench pressing. From dropping the bar on yourself to hurting your elbow, the bench press carries a fair amount of risk. But with standing cable flys, you won't have to be concerned about these issues.
  • Fully exhaust your muscles: Because you won't have to be worried about the type of issues that go along with bench pressing, you will be able to fully exhaust your pectoral muscles. This will lead to you making more progress in a shorter amount of time.

How Much Weight Should You Use While Doing Standing Cable Flys?

Although you want to start very light to get a feel for the right way to do standing cable flys, once you're comfortable with this exercise, you will want to really push yourself. While it can be difficult to find a weight that challenges you but doesn't force you to use bad form, there is a general guideline that can help. For exercises like standing cable flys, most fitness experts agree that three sets of eight reps is an ideal amount of work to do. The amount of weight you choose should allow you to complete all eight reps of the first two sets, but only 70-80% of the reps of the last set. When you can do all 8 reps of the last set, you know it's time to move up to the next level of weight.

 

 

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Standing Cable Fly