Cable Iron Cross
Stand square between two high pulleys with your arms out in a T, elbows straight, and pull both handles down to your sides. Straight arms mean a very long lever and a very light stack, but the payoff is that the pec and lat work together to bring the arm down against resistance the whole way to your hips.
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 to the top of the column and load the same weight on each stack.
- Take a handle in each hand and walk to the exact midpoint between the two towers.
- Stand tall with feet hip-width, chest up, ribs down, and abs braced against the upward pull.
- Open your arms into a T at shoulder height with the elbows straight but not jammed into hyperextension.
- Check the cables are not fouling on the frame at the top of the arc before you start.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Exhale as the arms come down to your sides, inhale on the way back to the T. Two seconds down, one second held at the bottom, three seconds back up.
Before you load it
- A locked elbow at shoulder height under load is unforgiving. If your elbows hyperextend naturally, keep 5-10 degrees of bend and accept slightly less leverage rather than hanging on the joint.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start at 5-10 kg per side — genuinely. Straight-arm leverage means most people who crossover with 20 kg per side will struggle here with half of that. The marker for good is being able to pause a second at the hips and take three seconds returning to the T. Add 2.5 kg per side only once the whole set passes that test.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Lock the elbows before rep one and reduce the stack until they stay locked. A bent elbow shortens the lever and quietly turns this into a much easier cable crossover.
Halve the weight you would use on a crossover. Straight arms multiply the leverage — a stack you can only start by leaning back is a stack you cannot control.
Line up the midpoint between the two towers before you start, and check your feet each set. Being off-centre by even 30 cm loads one shoulder at a longer range than the other.
Take three seconds to return to the T. The eccentric at end range is where most of the value sits, and giving it away is how people end the set with sore shoulders and nothing else.
Why bother
With the elbow locked out, the load sits a full arm's length from the shoulder joint, so a modest stack produces a large turning force at the shoulder. Nothing else in the chest catalogue asks for adduction with a completely straight arm, and it exposes how weak that position is for most people the first time they try it.
It is also part chest and part back, and that is not a flaw. Pulling a straight arm from shoulder height down to your hip is the same action as a straight-arm pulldown, so the sternal pec and the lats share the job. Standing dead centre between the pulleys means the two cables cancel each other sideways, leaving your trunk to resist only being pulled upward.
Where it fits
A finisher, 3 sets of 12-15, at the end of a chest or upper-body session. It overlaps heavily with the cable crossover, so run one or the other rather than both — the crossover handles more load and reaches a crossed finish, while this one trades that for a straighter arm and a longer lever.
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
How is this different from a cable crossover?
Three things. You stand between the pulleys rather than stepping through them, your elbows stay straight instead of holding a fixed bend, and your hands finish at your hips rather than crossing in front. The result is a longer lever, a much lighter stack, and more lat involvement. Pick one — running both in the same session is redundant volume.
Why can I barely move any weight on this?
Because a straight arm puts the load roughly twice as far from your shoulder as a bent one. The stack number is not a measure of your chest strength, it is a measure of leverage. Compare it to your own previous sessions, never to what you use on a press or a crossover.
Is this a chest exercise or a lat exercise?
Both, in roughly equal shares. Pulling a straight arm from shoulder height down to your side is shoulder adduction and extension at once, which the sternal pec and the lats perform together. If you want it more chest-dominant, pull the hands slightly forward of your hips rather than straight down.
Can I do it one arm at a time?
You can, but you lose the main advantage of the setup. With both cables pulling, the sideways forces cancel and you can stand upright; with one, you have to brace hard against being pulled sideways and the set becomes limited by your obliques. Do it single-arm deliberately or not at all.