Fitness: 5 great cable machine workouts

livemint.com:

Chest: I prefer to perform the flat bench press by switching between the smith machine and floor dumbbell press. But over the past few weeks, I have started using the cable machine for this. The challenge for the muscles has felt different because chest muscles can get used to certain moves.

In order to keep your progress from stalling, you need to occasionally refresh your workouts. When I use the cable machine, the resistance is radically different, because the cables make sure that I spend a longer time under tension.The cable flat bench press does not need to replace the traditional barbell and dumbbell version. But it works very well as a variation, because now you can hit your chest muscles from three different angles (flat, incline and decline) using three kinds of presses.An article on the golf-specific performance website myTPI, titled Why To Choose Cable Press Over Bench Press, their performance head Lance Gill talks about how the move affects golfers.

But the science he mentions can be applied to anyone. “I believe strongly that the bench press does not create as much kinesthetic awareness of similarity to press/push motion in the golf swing as compared to the cable press. I also believe strongly that the cable press does not create as much strength as the bench press," he writes.Drop sets: Apart from longer time spent under resistance and more shoulder-friendly angles, using the cable provides a massive drop set advantage.