Cable Kickback
The cable kickback is a glute isolation exercise where you drive one leg straight back against a low cable attached to your ankle. It trains the glutes, mostly the glute max, in the shortened position. Use it as a finisher after squats or hip thrusts, or to train each side on its own.
Muscles worked
The cable kickback trains the glutes.
Primary
Weekly sets for glutes
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for glutes, 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 kickback
- 01Set the pulley at the lowest position and attach an ankle strap to one ankle.
- 02Face the stack, hold the frame with both hands and hinge forward slightly at the hips.
- 03Shift your weight onto your standing leg with a soft knee and brace your trunk.
- 04Kick your working leg back and slightly up until your hip is fully extended.
- 05Squeeze your glute for a beat, then return your leg slowly to the start.
Coaching cues
- Drive your heel back to the wall
- Squeeze the glute, not the lower back
- Hips stay square to the stack
Common mistakes
- Arching your lower back to lift the leg higher swaps glute work for spinal extension, so stop when your hip is fully extended.
- Rotating your hip open to finish the rep shifts tension away from the glute, so keep both hips facing the stack.
- Swinging the leg with momentum skips the squeeze, so slow down and pause at the top of every rep.
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 Kickback 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 kickback free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.