Cable Hip Adduction
The cable hip adduction is a standing exercise where you pull one leg across your body against a low cable attached to your ankle. It trains the adductors of the inner thigh, which help with squatting, hinging and lateral movement. Use it to train them directly when your gym has no adductor machine.
Muscles worked
The cable hip adduction trains the adductors.
Primary
Weekly sets for adductors
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for adductors, counting every exercise that trains it. Start a cycle near the growth line and climb toward the recovery limit before a deload.
How to do the cable hip adduction
- 01Set the pulley at the lowest position and attach an ankle strap.
- 02Wrap the strap around the ankle nearest the stack and stand side-on to it.
- 03Step away until the cable pulls your working leg out to the side, then hold the frame for balance.
- 04Pull your working leg in and across in front of your standing leg in a smooth arc.
- 05Let your leg travel back out to the side slowly until you feel a stretch in your inner thigh.
Coaching cues
- Sweep the leg across your body
- Torso tall and still
- Control the stretch on the way out
Common mistakes
- Twisting your hips to bring the leg across turns it into a rotation, so keep your hips square to the front.
- Letting the cable snap your leg out wide risks overstretching, so control the return and stop at a comfortable stretch.
- Bending your working knee shortens the lever, so keep that leg mostly straight throughout.
How Swole.fit programs it
Log it once and the app plans the next session for you.
- Most sets land between 8 and 15 reps, the range the plan steers isolation work toward for size.
- Week one starts around 2 to 3 reps in reserve. Each week you train a little closer to failure, ending around 0 to 1 in reserve before a deload week.
- Hit the top of the range on every set and the next session adds the smallest real jump in weight, rounded to the plates, dumbbells or stack you actually have.
- Sets for this exercise count toward your weekly volume for every muscle it trains: a full set for the primary muscles, half a set for the helpers.
The full method, with the maths, is in how mesocycles work.
Cable Hip Adduction alternatives
Same muscles, different tool. Swap in one of these when the equipment is taken or your joints want a change.
Log it. Let the app plan the next one.
Track your cable hip adduction free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.