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cable kickback
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Cable Kickbacks are a highly effective glute isolation exercise that can significantly benefit women looking to enhance the strength and appearance of their glutes. While traditional kickbacks have their merits, Cable Kickbacks offer a superior way to isolate and target the glutes. Their key advantage lies in the ability to easily add resistance for faster progression. All you need is a cable station and an ankle cuff to perform this exercise.
Here we will delve into how to perform cable kickbacks, with video demonstration, as well as muscles worked and some other details on how you can make the most of this exercise and your glute workouts in general.
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How to Perform Cable Kickbacks
1. Cable Setup: Begin by attaching an ankle cuff to a low-set cable pulley machine and secure it around your ankle. Adjust the weight on the machine to your desired level.
2. Body Positioning: Stand at arm's length away from the cable machine, facing it.
3. Knee and Hip Position: Maintain a slight bend in both your knees and hips. This position ensures you have stability and control during the exercise. Tilt your hips back and up and keep your chest high throughout the movement.
4. Kick Back: Slowly kick your loaded leg back behind you. Focus on squeezing your glute at the top of the movement, fully contracting the muscle.
5. Controlled Return: Lower your leg back to the start position through the same smooth and controlled movement. Go for reps.
6. Switching Legs: After completing the set with one leg, switch to the other side and repeat the exercise.
Muscles Worked when Performing Cable Kickbacks
Cable Kickbacks primarily engage the following muscle groups:
Gluteus Maximus: Your glutes are the largest muscle in your body and is the primary muscle activated during Cable Kickbacks. This exercise helps in shaping and strengthening the gluteus for a firmer and more defined rear.
Hamstrings: Your hamstrings are engaged from a secondary perspective with this exercise.
You can use the muscle highlighted image at the top of this page for a visual guide of the muscles worked.
Benefits of Cable Kickbacks
Cable Kickbacks are excellent for isolating the glutes and loading them with as much weight as you can safely manage. The ability to easily add extra resistance to this exercise allows for faster progression and muscle growth.
Cable Kickbacks are a unilateral exercise, meaning they work one side at a time. This is especially beneficial for enhanced isolation of the single side and for helping you to identify any muscle imbalances. If you find yourself struggling more on one side than the other, you’ll know that you have an imbalance to rectify.
Another benefit of this exercise is that it is beginner friendly and easy to perform and progress.
When To Perform Cable Kickbacks In Your Workout
Cable kickbacks belong in your leg or glute focused workout.
Because this is an isolation exercise, and a cable exercise, Cable Kickbacks should be performed towards the end of your workout. The reason for this is because you should always perform the bigger compound exercises and isolation exercises that are performed with free weights (barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells) first. Any isolation or cable/machine exercises should be performed towards the end of your workout. This includes Cable Kickbacks.
You can learn more about exercise order here.
Cable Kickback Tips
Make sure you master control, form and the full range of motion on this exercise before you add any significant weight load.
Avoid over arching your lower back as this will result in putting unnecessary strain on your lower back and will take away the emphasis on the glutes. Our tip for this is to make sure your core is braced, and your back is neutral.
Also make sure you keep a reasonable distance from the machine (around arms length), hold on for support and kick your leg back through the full range of motion.
How Cable Kickbacks Benefit Other Lifts
Strong glutes contribute towards improving your overall squat and deadlift performance. Furthermore, you will improve your performance on any exercise that recruits this muscle group either from a primary or secondary perspective.
From an everyday perspective; your glutes are your largest muscle group and they play a key part in keeping you upright, therefore your overall core strength and posture are dependent on a strong set of glutes.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
As with all exercises, you should avoid sloppy form. Proper form is essential for maximising the effectiveness of any exercise, and Cable Kickbacks are no exception. Improper form can lead to the unintentional recruitment of other muscle groups and your lower back which can not only hinder your results, but could also result in an overuse or repetitive strain injury over time.
Concentrate on engaging the target muscle throughout the exercise for optimal results.
How to Make Cable Kickbacks More Challenging
The easiest and fastest way to make this exercise more challenging is by adding weight. Another way to make Cable Kickbacks more challenging is to slow down the move and hold for longer at the top, increasing the time under tension. Or you can slow down one half of the exercise, so kick out at normal speed and come back in at half the speed, or vice versa.
Exercises that Work Similar Muscles to Cable Kickbacks
Combine this exercise with other compound exercises that engage the glutes, such as Squats, Lunges or Deadlifts to help develop your glute power with more weight.
You can also add other isolation or assisted exercises such as Glute Bridges, Kickbacks, and Leg Presses (with a wide foot position for better glute engagement). These movements help diversify your glute workout routine and help you target the glutes with different types of weight distribution for well rounded results.
More bum exercises are available at the bottom of this page. Or you can check out our entire exercise database, broken down by muscle group here.
