STOP F*cking Up Cable Flys (PROPER FORM!)

Do you know how to do a cable crossover? If not, you’re in luck. In this video, I am going to show you exactly how to perform a cable crossover so that you can perform the exercise every time without making a single mistake. Remember, it’s not just what exercise you do, but how you them that matters

there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see someone doing one of my favorite chest exercises the cable crossover and it makes my heart sing the problem is we [ __ ] it up but that’s where I come in and it’s my job to show you how to do a cable crossover the right way and it starts with setting up the right height and that ask the question of you of what are you actually trying to train what part of your chest because depending upon how high you set this you can train different areas if you want to go for the middle sternal portion of the chest then you want this Anchor Point of the cable to be lined up with your chest if you want to work more of the lower chest and you want to set this thing up at the height of your head just above the top of your head so when you bring the arm down you’re coming from this high to low angle which is going to work more preferentially on these fibers of the lower chest that align themselves more this direction if instead you want to work the upper chest what we want to do is drop this Anchor Point down just to hip height so now when we come up it’s going to come from this low to high position now what’s important about this is you don’t want to go too low cuz if you do that you’re recruiting more of that front delt instead by having it at this hip height it’s the perfect amount of chest activation minimizing the front delt and letting the muscles that you actually want to grow do the work so how much weight do you use on the exercise well honestly probably a lot more than you’re using right now cuz people too often treat this exercise as a light chest exercise that you do for High Reps and you’re missing a great opportunity to overload through Ecentric and also in that good stretch position but here’s the problem people don’t know how to get on the exercise in the first place they don’t know how to mount the machine cuz they take these heavier weights they go to get in position and either their shoulder hurts or they just can’t move the weights because there’s no leverage here so instead you do this you grab one of these you put it right up against your chest and you walk yourself over to the other side grab it nice and close put it towards your chest then get yourself in position cuz at this point you’re able to set yourself up but that is only if you’re standing the right way and so if you’re paying close attention you notice that I stepped out when I set up to do the exercise instead of keep keep my feet square and trying to do the exercise this way cuz I talked about using heavier weights and there’s no way that you’re going to be able to counterbalance these heavy weights especially as they get to the starting position without going backwards or having an incredibly strong core so by taking that step out I set myself up to be not only in a more athletic position but a more stable grounded position so I can manage these heavier weights but how far away from the machine should I be because it actually matters a lot you see if you imagine the cables here as forming a doorway where you stand in relation to that door really matters in terms of what muscles you’re going to prioritize see if I stayed within the doorway then all I’m doing is biasing the biceps because even though the idea is to cross my arms across my chest in adduction I’m still pulling the weight or the tendency is to pull the weight a little bit closer towards my body which is going to engage the biceps too much on the other hand if I got way out in front of the machine I’m outside the doorway completely but now I put not only a lot of extra stress on the anterior shoulder capsule which could be uncomfortable for some but I’m actually going to turn this extra exercise more into a press at the end because that’s the angle of the cable that I’ve established it’s not as much about adduction as it’s about getting my arms out in front of me which we don’t want so instead what you want to do is get set up in that starting position like I told you with your hands up here against the chest leave one foot in the door and just take one stride out this will set you up in the perfect amount of adduction to Target the chest minimize the biceps and also minimize those front delts however how much elbow Ben should you have when you start doing the exercise cuz that matters too well enough to be kind of those shoulders are yours because keeping your arm straight might feel like a really good stretch on your chest but having just a little bit of Bend in the elbow like that is enough to take off some of that extra stress from once again that anterior shoulder capsule and guess what it doesn’t change the amount of stretch that you’re getting on the chest because whether or not my arms are extended straight or there’s a slight Bend doesn’t change the relationship of the chest in terms of its shoulder alignment to the sternum so what we want to do is give ourselves that brief reprieve by having that slight bend the next thing you want to do though is set your body up for success and this is where most people screw up they don’t lean forward to start that’s going to number one intensify the stretch on the chest to start but more importantly set you up to execute every rep the right way because just like on the bench press you want to be able to push your body back into this imaginary bench as you press the weight out in front of you because it not only gives you leverage but it once again gives you the chance to push those heavier weights but it also does something very important as I’m leaning forward to start it sets me up to naturally want to pull back and lean back as I come across and what that does is it prioritizes the chest it makes sure that the shoulders don’t dominate the exercise cuz what most people do incorrectly as many of those I showed you in the beginning of the video is they start by leaning forward and they lean even more forward as they go and as soon as that shoulder crosses out in front of the chest and leaves the chest behind it’s going to do the majority of the work which is not what you’re trying to do here you’re trying to train your chest so let the chest do the work by letting it be out in front of the shoulder and if you do this by starting Lean Forward again you get a better pre-stretch but it sets you up perfectly to drive back into that imaginary bench get the chest doing all the work feel a better contraction and ultimately grow a bigger chest and when growing a bigger chest is what you’re after there’s still one more thing we can do to squeeze more gains out of every repetition and it’s literally squeezing the right way so when we talk about the finished position of the crossover a lot of times we start sort of end here right in front of our chest and that’s not enough if you want to turn this into a true adduction exercise which is one of the main functions of the chest you got to add duct that arm across the chest and notice I said arm not hand cuz some people just think if they crossed their hands they’ve done enough and you’re not far enough you need to think about your bicep in relation to the chest your bicep should touch your chest if possible by getting across your midline if you can get all the way across your midline you can make contact up here with your chest and ensure that you’re getting full amounts of adduction but that’s not it because not only are you again leaning back and pushing out but you also want to do one more thing at the end of the repetition you want to squeeze your shoulders down adduct your elbows down towards your sides to really light up the chest to get the fu