

ALTERNATIVES TO CABLE CROSSOVER HOW TO
Here is how to perform the high-to-low cable crossover: The good news is, it's essentially the same movement no matter what height you choose, you'll just be bringing your arms in at a different angle. The variation we will describe below is the high-to-low crossover with palms in a neutral grip. The beauty of the cable machine and the crossover chest exercise is you can move the pulley height up or down to better target the upper, middle, or lower chest.Īll variations will do well to carve out the inner area of the pecs. Either way, both of these movements maximize the benefits of the cable stack’s versatility to create maximum and consistent tension on the chest muscles throughout the exercise, which will help them grow. The crossover has many variations, some of which are performed in more of a pressing fashion with palms down, and that can be a great exercise as well, but the cable crossover variation we are referring to in this article is with palms facing each other in a neutral grip position similar to the cable fly. Now some of this is apples to apples and will come down to your preference, but if you follow the science of what the chest does, it functions to adduct your arms (hugging motion), so bringing them slightly farther across is likely to increase pec activation.

The crossover will allow the hands to cross over one another and take the arms ever so slightly past the midline of the body, allowing the pecs to get an even greater contraction. A cable fly will stop with the hands or even just the pinkies touching to finish the chest contraction. These two exercises are the same up until the final portion of the range of motion. This answer can be confusing, but yes and no.

Are The Cable Crossover & Cable Fly the Same Exercise? What's more, the movement allows the pecs to stretch deeply before contracting, which is great for eccentric contraction and it helps build a great mind-muscle connection that can be challenging to replicate on a bench press since many other muscle groups are hard at work. And while you cannot completely isolate one muscle, the cable crossover is considered more of an isolation chest exercise due to it being a single joint movement (your elbows should remain pinned in position, so just your shoulder joint is moving).īecause it is an "isolation exercise", the cable crossover makes for a great warmup or finisher for the chest muscle group. The cable crossover mainly targets the pec major, with emphasis on the lower and inner fibers of the muscle. The most common variation will be the high-to-low crossover, but you can do this exercise low-to-high and at a middle angle as well. What’s great about the crossover is the versatility to change the cable height to target different portions of the chest. The cable crossover is a chest isolation exercise that uses a cable crossover machine to target the pectoral muscles. 13 best cable crossover alternative exercises.What makes a good cable crossover alternative?.Can you get similar benefits with cable crossover alternatives?.Are the cable crossover & cable fly the same exercise?.Here is what we will cover in today’s article about alternatives to cable crossovers: So, whether the cable machine is being hogged by somebody else taking Instagram videos or you don’t have access to one at your gym, we’ve got you covered. Cable crossovers are always a great option, but what are the alternatives?ĭon’t get us wrong, crossovers are a fantastic exercise with tons of benefits for building slabs of chest muscle, but there are certainly other options that produce similar effects on the pecs (rhyme intended). You've knocked out your bench press sets and are looking to finish off your chest workout with a serious burn.
