Cable Pullover
The cable pullover is a lat isolation exercise, often done lying on a bench facing away from a high pulley, where you pull your arms from behind your head to above your chest. It trains the lats with the chest assisting. Pick it over dumbbell pullovers to keep tension at the top of the rep.
Muscles worked
The cable pullover trains the lats, with chest helping.
Weekly sets for lats
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for lats, 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 pullover
- 01Set a flat bench lengthwise in front of a low or mid pulley and attach a straight bar or rope.
- 02Lie on the bench with your head nearest the stack and grab the attachment overhead with straight arms.
- 03Start with your arms extended back past your head and a soft bend in your elbows.
- 04Pull the attachment up and over in an arc until your hands are above your lower chest.
- 05Lower your arms back behind your head slowly until you feel a deep stretch through your lats.
Coaching cues
- Drive the bar in a rainbow arc
- Ribs stay pinned to the bench
- Long arms, fixed elbows
Common mistakes
- Letting your lower back arch off the bench at the stretch loses tension, so brace your abs and keep ribs down.
- Bending your elbows deeply on each rep turns it into a triceps extension, so hold a slight, constant bend.
- Using too much weight shortens the stretch behind your head, so pick a load you can lower slowly to full range.
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 Pullover 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 pullover free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.