Your back on the cable station: six pulls and where to set the pulley

Dumbbells and barbells resist you only straight down, which is why the free-weight back pages in this library keep meeting the same gap: no vertical pull without a pull-up bar. A cable's pulley can sit overhead, at chest height or at the floor, so one station gives you pulldowns, rows from three heights and pullovers, on a pin you move in small steps. The stack also keeps pulling at the start of every rep, when the lats and upper back are at their longest, and most pulls work one arm at a time, so the hand travels further than a bar allows.

The limits are real. On heavy rows the stack drags you off the seat before your back gives out. Most cable pulls are seated or upright, so the muscles beside the spine do little, and a cable-only plan leaves out the hinge. The back training guide sets out the weekly plan with any equipment; this page assumes the cable is your main tool.

Every cable back exercise follows one of four lines of pull, and a complete session takes something from at least three of them.

• From overhead: the lat pulldown, with a long bar, a close neutral handle or one D-handle. It is the cable's answer to the pull-up, and usually the heaviest back exercise on the station.
• Horizontal: the seated cable row with both hands, and the single-arm cable row at a pulley near chest height, covered step by step below.
• Straight arms, for the lats: the straight-arm pulldown, sweeping a bar from the top pulley to your thighs, and the lying cable pullover, lying on a flat bench with your head towards the bottom pulley and drawing a bar from behind your head to over your chest. Some gyms call the standing version a cable pullover too; the lying one is heaviest with the arms overhead and the lats fully stretched, the standing one near the hips.
• Upper back and rear shoulders: the face pull, a rope at about forehead height, finishing with the hands beside the ears.

Two extras earn a place when time allows: the half-kneeling high row, pulling from a high pulley down towards the lower chest, halfway between a pulldown and a row, and the cable shrug at a low pulley for the upper traps. For the hips and the muscles along the lower spine, the nearest cable option is the cable pull-through.

Rowing one side at a time is the pull a cable does that little else copies: the handle starts well in front of the shoulder and finishes behind the ribs while the trunk works to stay square. In a 2015 study of 15 resistance-trained men, one-arm rows, including the seated cable row, brought more activity in the external oblique at the side of the waist than two-arm rows, which brought more in the muscles along the lower spine. It was one session of muscle-activity readings, not a training study, but it describes the trade: one arm adds trunk work, two arms let the back take more load.

1. Set the pulley at lower-chest height with a D-handle. Face the column, take the handle in your right hand and step back until the stack lifts.
2. Stand with your left foot forward, or kneel on your right knee with the left foot in front: the opposite leg forward gives you a stable base.
3. Let the cable draw your right shoulder forward until the shoulder blade moves round the ribs, while your hips and chest keep facing the stack.
4. Draw the shoulder blade back first, then drive the elbow past your ribs towards your back pocket.
5. Hold for a count, then return over two to three seconds to the long, reaching start. Do the weaker side first.

Your other hand changes the exercise. On your hip, the trunk has to stop the cable turning you, so the load stays moderate and the obliques work hard. Holding the tower's frame, you can row noticeably heavier and the back does more. Write down which one you did.

Progress in the usual order: reps to the top of the range on every set, then the next pin. Two snags are particular to the back. Once you lean back to finish a row, or the stack lifts you off the seat, you are fighting your bodyweight, not the pin; switch to single-arm rows with the other hand braced on the frame. On light pulls such as pullovers and face pulls, one plate can be a large jump, so add a three-second lowering, a one-second hold or a fourth set before moving up, or use the small add-on weight some stacks have beside the pin. When most of the pulldown stack goes for clean reps, pull-ups are the usual next step if the gym has a bar; ask on a tour. The hypertrophy volume calculator counts the week's back sets.

• Leaning back to finish. A torso that swings on pulldowns and seated rows hands the work to momentum; set the angle before the first rep and keep it.
• Letting the plates rest. If the stack touches down between reps you are too close, and the back rests exactly where it should be stretched.
• One pulley height for everything. The cable should run along your elbow's path: high for pulldowns, chest height for single-arm rows, low for seated rows and pullovers.
• Skipping the hinge. Cables leave the muscles along the spine under-worked, so a Romanian deadlift or a pull-through belongs in the week. If your back or shoulder hurts during a pull, stop, and speak to a doctor or physiotherapist before you carry on.

RPM's floor photos of the Al Manhal training floor show multi-station cable towers with pulldown seats and thigh pads, a rope and single handles clipped to the stations, and flat benches nearby, which covers the pulldowns, face pulls and straight-arm work here. The photos cannot show whether a column slides to the floor for single-arm rows and the lying pullover, or which bars and V-handles are on hand, so check on a free guided tour. For the hinge, they show barbells with colour bumper plates and a dumbbell rack. To have a coach set your pulleys and pins, book personal training.