Best Exercise In Ever: Half Kneeling Cable Pullovers

It’s been a while since I’ve put up a “best exercises” post and I thought this would be a great one to throw down on the world. I really like this version since it works on a bunch of different things, which I’ll talk about later, and it’s a deceptively tricky little bugger which makes grown men feel like kittens. When done incorrectly, you can’t feel anything going on, but when it’s done right it’s like a fight for your very soul is going down in your hips and core.

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What it Does:

First, the half kneeling position is one of the most butchered stances you’ll see in the gym. Most people have next to nothing when it comes to flexibility through the rectus femoris, meaning they anteriorly tilt their pelvis like crazy to reduce the tension, and concurrently wind up shutting off their gluteus and abs, which forces them to hang off fascial tension to create stability. An easy test to see how stable someone is in this position is to simply nudge their forward knee to either side to see if it makes them go boom. Perfect pelvic posture is paramount. Alliteration, not from concentrate.

Second, with an anteroposterior force implied through the body (front to back for the non-geeks in the room), the entire core has to create stability through all segments and can’t rely on axial loading to carry the weight on joints. The key to remember is that the weight has to be heavy enough to feel like somethings going on, but not so heavy that the only way to hang on is to flex the thoracic spine or pelvis to keep from sling-shotting into the cable machine. Keep a vertical posture on this bad boy at all times, and get real picky about doing it absolutely perfectly.

Last, the movement into overhead requires a lot of thoracic mobility coupled with scapular mobility, and in the presence of a de-stabilizing force can make for a rough afternoon in the gym if you’re not focused. Most people who lack the mobility and stability to get overhead properly will tend to cheat the hell out of the movement and start bending the elbows to get their hands up there, essentially turning this into a triceps press. Also, they’ll wind up making like a turtle and sticking their head out from between their arms to hang off cervical tension instead of using their core properly. Again, perfect posture is paramount.

Some Coaching Cues:

Kneeling on either a roller, pad or towel, get up on your back toe as shown so that you can bear down into the floor. The knee thats down should also have a glute flexed so hard it can crack diamonds, and also have a ridiculously stiff co-contracted abdomen to match. Breathing should be troubled but unrestricted, if that makes sense.

Sit as tall as possible without extending your neck, keep the elbows as straight as possible, and raise the arms overhead trying to brush the biceps against the ears, and without changing even one vertebrae a single solitary degree out of the current position. Make sure the shoulders stay centred over the hips, which stays centred over the knee on the roller, squeeze the hell out of everything everywhere, and pull that sucker back down to the starting position.

It’s just that easy.

Who It’s best for

This is the kind of exercise that can be friendly to almost everyone, from athletes to injury rehab. Due to the heavy reliance on posture and thoracopelvic positioning, it works great as a corrective exercise, and for those with a more advanced core, you can jack the weight up and completely crush the abs, yo.

It’s designed to be an exercise under high tension, regardless of the resistance being used. That means the main work is done by the body in trying to maintain stability and resist deformation due to the loading. The weight is a secondary concern. The person doing this should feel like they got mentally run over by a truck after they’re finished because they’re focusing so hard on getting everything right and staying as strong and stiff as possible. Low reps will be all you need, especially since you’ll be doing both sides. 5-8 reps should be an endurance set with this bad boy. Also since this has such a big emphasis on posture and your down leg’s glute is doing the majority of the work, it should feel like you got a one-two punch in the breadbasket and the money-maker when you’re done this as you’re gluteus will probably start convulsing all over the place from the sustained tension they’re probably not used to. Having rental wheelchair available would be a great option after hitting this one up.

My personal best is 37.5 pounds on the FreeMotion machine, which was both mind-alteringly difficult and ego-demolishingly sad, as I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there reading this right now who will hit the gym tomorrow and crank out a 50 pounder like it’s cake.

I hate you for that.

I’m just kidding. I don’t hate you. Hey, you’re all right.

That’s all for today. Toodles, folks.