Cable Deadlifts
Also works: Forearms · Glutes · Hamstrings · Lower Back
Standing between two low pulleys, you squat down to the handles and stand up against constant cable tension. Despite the name it moves like a squat rather than a hinge, and because the cables pull outwards and slightly forwards there is no dead stop on the floor and no bar to fight your shins.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Set both pulleys as low as they go and clip a single handle to each.
- Stand exactly midway between the towers — off-centre and one side takes more load than the other for the whole set.
- Feet shoulder-width, toes turned slightly out, weight over the mid-foot.
- Squat down by bending the hips and knees together to reach the handles, rather than bending over to grab them.
- Set your chest up and your shoulder blades down before you take the weight off the stack.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale and brace at the bottom, exhale as you finish standing. One to two seconds up, three seconds down, no pause at the bottom.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start at roughly 15-20 kg per side and add a plate once you can do 15 reps with a three-second lowering and no arm involvement. Most stacks top out around 80-100 kg per side, so once you are pulling the whole stack for 15, switch to slower eccentrics, pauses at the top, or a barbell variation rather than chasing weight.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Raise both pulleys one notch so the handles come to you, then bend the knees to meet them. If the back still rounds at the bottom, that is your depth for now — stop the descent there and add reps instead of range.
Think of your hands as hooks on the end of straight ropes. Let your legs move the load and check in a mirror that your elbows stay locked out.
Line yourself up with the midpoint before the first rep and check that both cables leave the pulleys at the same angle. Reset if you drift during the set.
Take three seconds on the descent and stop just short of the plates touching. The controlled lowering, not the lift, is where most of the growth stimulus lives here.
Why bother
The resistance never disappears. A barbell unloads at lockout because gravity pulls straight down through a locked skeleton; a cable stack keeps pulling from the base of the tower, so the glutes and quads stay under tension at the top of every rep. That makes it a better hypertrophy tool than a strength one.
Be clear about what this is. Upstream calls it a deadlift, but with the handles at your sides and a squat down to reach them, it trains the knees and quads far more than a hip hinge does. If you want to load your hamstrings and lower back, do a Romanian deadlift instead — this is not a substitute.
Where it fits
Accessory work later in a leg session, or the main leg movement in a machine-only gym or when your lower back cannot tolerate axial loading. Three or four sets in the 10-15 range, one or two sessions a week. There is no strength range here on purpose: the stack runs out around 80-100 kg a side, so volume and time under tension are the only progression levers.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Start here instead
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
Is this actually a deadlift?
Not really. The name is inherited, but with handles at your sides and knees bending to reach them, the movement pattern is a squat with a cable load. Your quads and glutes do most of the work; your hamstrings and lower back do far less than they would in a barbell deadlift. Log it as a squat pattern.
Can it replace barbell deadlifts?
For hypertrophy in the quads and glutes, it does a respectable job. For building maximal posterior-chain strength, no — the stack runs out long before a serious lifter does, and the constant tension prevents the hard dead start that makes barbell pulling valuable.
My grip fails before my legs. What should I do?
Use straps. Grip is genuinely the limiter here because the handles are thin and the tension never releases at the top. Straps let you train the legs to failure, and if you also want grip work, do it separately with holds rather than capping your leg sets.
Why do the cables pull me forward at the top?
Because the pulleys are behind and below your hands at lockout, so the resistance line is angled backwards and down. Fight it by squeezing your glutes and keeping your ribs stacked over your pelvis. That constant pull is exactly why the top of the rep is worth holding for a beat.