Cable Rear Delt Fly
rear deltoid
What moves the load, and what it costs
3.5MET
Rear deltoid is the prime mover, with the upper back assisting. Constant tension through the whole arc, including the shortened position where dumbbells offer almost none.
Cue: Cross the cables in front of you at shoulder height and pull the hands apart and back in a wide arc.
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·FILED UNDER WEIGHTS, 8–15 REPS·REVIEWED JUL 2026
SHARED AXIS · SEVEN VALUES FROM ONE TABLE · HIGHLIGHTED ROW IS THIS MOVEMENT
The compendium files cable rear delt fly under a category, not a lift. Read the ladder as position, not precision: this is heavier work than sitting quietly by a factor of 3.5, and middling for conditioning work.
Turning that MET value into a real energy cost
- Map the movement to a published category. The compendium measures categories of conditioning work, never individual lifts, so cable rear delt fly is filed under Resistance training (weight lifting), multiple exercises, 8–15 repetitions at varied resistance.
- Take the category's MET value — 3.5. One MET is the cost of sitting quietly, so this is 3.5 times resting metabolism.
- Multiply by 3.5 to get millilitres of oxygen per kilogram per minute, the unit the MET is actually defined in.
- Multiply by your bodyweight in kilograms and divide by 200. The result is kilocalories per minute of work.
- Count working minutes only. Under load, not under the roof — a set of eight is about 25 seconds of the hour you were there.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × body mass (kg) ÷ 200 Cable Rear Delt Fly: 3.5 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200 = 4.29 kcal/min
SOURCE·ACSM metabolic equation + 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·REFERENCE BODY MASS 70 KG·REVIEWED JUL 2026
What is actually doing the work
| Muscle | Role | What it does here |
|---|---|---|
| Rear deltoidPosterior deltoid | Prime mover | Draws the upper arm backwards and out (shoulder horizontal abduction and extension). Works with the rhomboids and mid traps on every wide-elbow row. |
| Upper backRhomboids and middle trapezius | Synergist / stabiliser | Draws the shoulder blades together and towards the spine (scapular retraction). Every horizontal row loads it; every pulldown loads it less. |
The prime mover produces the movement against the resistance; synergists assist and stabilisers hold a joint still without moving it. An exercise trains the whole muscle it loads — there is no way to work only part of a muscle, and no exercise removes fat from the area around it.
Set up, then earn the rep
Cable machine. Every rep should look like the first one. The moment it stops looking like the first one, the set is finished.
PATTERN · ISOLATION
- Hinge forward at the hips until your torso is close to parallel with the floor, or lie chest-down on an incline bench.
- Let the handle hang below the shoulders with a small fixed bend in the elbows.
- Cross the cables in front of you at shoulder height and pull the hands apart and back in a wide arc.
- Open the arms out and back in a wide arc, leading with the elbows.
- Stop when the upper arms reach shoulder level, hold for a beat, then lower under control.
- Think about moving the arms, not squeezing the shoulder blades together — the blades will follow, but leading with them turns this into a row.
Where this one breaks down
Not theory. These are the faults you correct on a gym floor, and the correction that actually works.
Going too heavy and turning it into a row.
If the elbows bend and the blades crunch together, the rear delt has handed the job to the mid-back. This is a light exercise.
Swinging up with the torso.
Fix the torso against a bench if you cannot keep it still.
Skipping it entirely.
The rear deltoid gets nothing from pressing and very little from tucked-elbow rows. It needs its own work.
Regress it, or progress it
Regress — earn it first
Progress — the next demand
This sits at the top of its progression here. Add load, add range, slow the tempo or go single-limb before you go looking for a new exercise.
Prescription: load, reps, rest
Read off the goal, then hold the technique constant as the load climbs. Derived from the movement's mechanics, not invented for this page: a single-joint movement does its best work in moderate to high reps — very low reps load the joint before the muscle.
| Goal | Sets | Reps | Rest | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 3–4 | 6–10 | 2 min | Single-joint work responds poorly to very low reps — the joint gets the load before the muscle does. |
| Muscle size | 3–4 | 10–15 | 60–90 sec | This is where isolation work earns its place: cheap volume for one muscle, little systemic fatigue. |
| Endurance / fat loss | 2–3 | 15–25 | 30–45 sec | High reps here are genuinely useful — the load is small enough that form survives the fatigue. |
| First month | 2 | 12–15 | 60 sec | Light. Isolation work is for adding volume later, not for building a base. |
Time under load, in kilocalories
Read these as minutes of work, not minutes in the building. A set of eight takes about twenty-five seconds; the rest of the hour is rest, chalk and queueing.
Mapped category: Resistance training (weight lifting), multiple exercises, 8–15 repetitions at varied resistance — 3.5 MET. That is the published category this movement is filed under, not a measurement of this specific lift.
Worked at 3.5 MET × 3.5 × 70 kg ÷ 200 = 4.29 kcal per working minute for a 70 kg adult. Scale it by your own bodyweight; the equation is linear. The full activity dataset lives at BurnLab.
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·CATEGORY VALUE, NOT A PER-EXERCISE MEASUREMENT·REVIEWED JUL 2026
If the rack is taken
Substitutes train the same prime mover through the same pattern with different kit. Computed from the muscle and pattern data on this card, not hand-picked to fill a grid.
Where it sits in a week
One movement is not a programme. The twelve templates put these in order, including 6 that need no gym at all.
The questions that come up on the floor
What muscles does the cable rear delt fly work?
Cable Rear Delt Fly is a single-joint isolation movement in which the rear deltoid is the prime mover, assisted by the upper back. Draws the upper arm backwards and out (shoulder horizontal abduction and extension). Works with the rhomboids and mid traps on every wide-elbow row.
Is the cable rear delt fly good for beginners?
Yes. It rates 2 out of 5 for technical difficulty on this site — learnable in a session or two; low injury cost if it goes wrong. Start with the lightest sensible load and two or three sets of 12–15.
What can I do instead of the cable rear delt fly at home?
The dumbbell rear delt fly is the nearest home-friendly version. Where a bodyweight substitute does not exist, progress by slowing the tempo and using single-limb versions instead of adding load.
How many sets and reps of the cable rear delt fly should I do?
For muscle size, 3–4 sets of 10–15 with 60–90 sec rest. For strength, 3–4 sets of 6–10 with 2 min rest. In your first month, 2 sets of 12–15, stopping well short of failure. Total weekly hard sets per muscle group matters more than the exact rep number in any of these ranges.
Does the cable rear delt fly burn fat from the rear deltoid?
No. No exercise removes fat from the area it trains — spot reduction has been tested repeatedly and does not happen. Training the rear deltoid builds the muscle underneath; where body fat is lost from is decided by an overall calorie deficit and by your genetics, not by which exercise you chose.
Muscle roles follow standard kinesiology references and are described by joint action rather than by gym convention — see how this site is built. Energy figures are derived from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Every reference is named and dated on the sources page. General information only — not medical or coaching advice. Load, form and progression should be adjusted to your own experience and any injury history. When in doubt, get coached in person.
SOURCE·Published exercise references·MUSCLE ROLES ASSIGNED BY JOINT ACTION·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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