Exercise Guides: How To's and Comparisons

The seated hip abduction machine is the classic way to isolate the glute medius, glute minimus, and the upper part of the glute max. You sit down, push your knees apart against a pad, and feel the outside of your hips burn. It’s simple, and plenty of lifters like it for building shelf-like glutes and hip stability.

But plenty of gyms don’t have one, it’s often taken, and a home gym almost never has the space. The good news is that the same muscles respond to a bunch of other setups. A cable, a mini band, or just your bodyweight will do the job.

Here are the 8 alternatives I’d pick, ranked roughly by how well they replace the machine. I chose them for how directly they hit the outer glutes, what equipment they need, and how easy they are to add weight to. If you’re also looking for a broader glute list, see our glute bridge alternatives and cable glute exercises.

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The seated leg curl is one of the best machines for hamstring size. You sit upright with your thighs pinned under a pad, and curl your heels down and back. Because your hips are bent, the hamstrings are stretched at the start of each rep, and that long position is why this machine works so well for growing them.

The problem is that not every gym has one, and the ones that do tend to have a line. Maybe you train at home, or the machine hurts your knees, or it’s the wrong size for your legs. Whatever the reason, a handful of exercises can give you most of the same hamstring work.

Here are the 8 alternatives I’d use, picked for how much hamstring work they give you, how easy they are to find equipment for, and how well they hold up without a machine. If you’re after the lying version of the machine, see our lying leg curl alternatives. This page is about the seated machine.

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The overhead tricep extension is the best exercise I know for the long head of the triceps. Your arm sits above your head, the long head crosses the shoulder joint, and that position stretches it harder than any pushdown or skull crusher can. Since the long head is the biggest of the three heads, this is the lift that adds the most size to the back of your arm.

It also gets cranky for plenty of people. Holding a dumbbell or bar behind your head can irritate the elbow, and a tight shoulder or thoracic spine makes the overhead position awkward or painful. Some lifters just don’t have the gear: no cable stack, no bench, or only a pair of heavy dumbbells that are too awkward to get into position.

Here are the 8 alternatives I’d reach for. Every one of them keeps the long head under a real stretch, and I picked them for how well they do that, how easy they are on the elbow and shoulder, and what equipment they need. If you want other angles on triceps training, see our skull crusher alternatives and tricep pushdown alternatives.

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The bicep curl is the standard arm exercise for a reason. It trains the biceps brachii, the muscle on the front of your upper arm, plus the brachialis underneath it and the forearm muscles that help hold the weight. Most of us start with a dumbbell or barbell curl and never think much about it.

But you might need a different option. Maybe your elbows or wrists complain about the straight bar, you only have bands at home, or your arms stopped growing from the same curl you’ve done for two years. A different curl or pull can fix all three.

Here are the 8 alternatives I’d actually use. I picked them for how well they load the biceps, how kind they are to your joints, and what equipment they need. Some of these are straight swaps, and some change the angle on purpose. Keep reading to find the one that fits your situation.

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The one-arm dumbbell row is one of the best lat and upper back builders you can do with a bench and a single dumbbell. You brace one hand on the bench, hinge forward, and row the dumbbell toward your hip. Because you train one side at a time, each lat gets full attention and you can see right away if one side is weaker. It also hits the rhomboids, rear delts, and biceps along the way.

There are plenty of reasons to swap it. The dumbbells at your gym might top out before your lats do. Your grip may give out on the heavy ones. Your lower back might complain from holding that hinge, or the one bench in the dumbbell area is always taken. Or you’re training at home and only have a pair of adjustable dumbbells and a band.

I picked these 8 based on how directly they train the lats and upper back, how easy they are to load, and what equipment they need. Most are unilateral or supported, so they keep the best parts of the dumbbell row. If you’re looking to replace the barbell version instead, see our bent-over row alternatives page.

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The single-leg Romanian deadlift (RDL) is a unilateral hip hinge. You stand on one leg, push your hips back, and lower a weight toward the floor while your free leg extends behind you, then squeeze your glute to stand back up. It trains your hamstrings and glutes one side at a time, and it builds hip stability and balance that a two-legged hinge never asks for.

It’s also an annoying lift to load. Balance usually gives out before your hamstrings do, so you end up stuck with weights that are too light to build much. Throw in a bad ankle, a cranky grip, or a gym that’s full of people using the only dumbbells you need, and it’s easy to see why people look for a swap.

Here are the 8 single-leg RDL alternatives I’d actually use. Some keep the one-leg hinge and make it easier to load, some trade the balance demand for a more stable setup, and a couple hit the same muscles from a different angle. If you want the two-legged version, we already have a page on Romanian deadlift alternatives, so this list stays focused on the single-leg lift.

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The seated machine shoulder press is the lift most lifters reach for when they want to hit their delts hard without thinking about balance. You sit against a pad, grab a pair of handles, and press along a path the machine controls. Pin-loaded and plate-loaded versions both train the front and side delts and the triceps, and the back support takes your lower back and legs out of the equation.

The reasons to want a swap are practical. The machine is taken, or your gym doesn’t have one, or the fixed path pinches your shoulder, which happens when the handles start at a spot your shoulders don’t like. Some lifters also want to train one arm at a time to fix a weak side, and that’s hard on many machines.

Here are the 8 alternatives I reach for most, picked for how closely they copy what the machine gives you: back support, a stable or guided path, and easy loading. If you want standing and barbell options, see our guide to barbell overhead press alternatives. This page is about the seated machine.

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Your front delt is the part of your shoulder sitting right under your collarbone, and it’s already doing heavy work every time you bench press, overhead press, or push a door open. It’s the prime mover any time your arm goes up in front of your body, and it kicks in as a secondary driver on nearly every pressing exercise you already do. This page covers 6 cable exercises built specifically for that muscle, from a basic front raise you can load heavy to a rotation variation most lifters have never tried.

A cable keeps tension on your front delt through the whole rep instead of losing it at the top or bottom the way a dumbbell does. That matters more here than on most muscles, since your front delt is already getting plenty of indirect work from pressing, and the last thing you want is another exercise that only loads it hard for half the range. Direct cable work lets you finish the job at a controlled, joint-friendly angle instead of just adding more heavy pressing to your week. You also get angles a barbell can’t touch, like the cross-body path and the deep behind-the-body stretch, both covered below.

Below are the 6 cable exercises I’d actually program for the front delt, starting with the basic raise and working through the straight-bar, single-arm, cross-body, and rotation variations before finishing on a compound press. Every exercise gets real how-to steps and a demo video, plus a sample workout and a look at the anatomy behind it. If you want lateral and rear delt options on the same page, see our cable shoulder exercises roundup instead. This page sticks to the front delt only.

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Your side delts are the lateral head of your deltoid, and they’re the muscle that turns narrow shoulders into wide ones. A big chest and thick lats help your frame, but nothing widens you from the front the way a well-built lateral head does. Most lifters chase that with dumbbell lateral raises, and dumbbells work fine, but the resistance goes slack the second your arm passes your hip on the way down. Your side delt gets a break right when it should still be working.

A cable fixes that. The pulley pulls at a fixed angle instead of straight down with gravity, so your side delt stays loaded through the whole rep, from the bottom stretch to the top of the raise. You can also set the pulley low, high, or route it behind your back, which gives you angles a dumbbell can’t touch. That’s why a cable lateral raise, in one form or another, shows up in almost every shoulder session I write, and why this list is worth having on its own instead of buried in a general shoulder roundup.

Below are the 6 cable exercises I’d actually program for the lateral head, starting with the standard version and working through less common setups like the leaning raise and the double cable raise. If you’re after the rear delts instead, we’ve got a separate cable rear delt exercises guide, or see our cable shoulder exercises roundup if you want all three heads on one page. Every exercise here gets real how-to steps and a demo video, plus a sample workout and a look at the anatomy behind all of it.

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Your lats are the widest muscle in your back, running from your upper arm all the way down to your pelvis and spine. Their job is to pull your arm down and in toward your body, which is why almost every pulling exercise hits them to some degree. A well-built set of lats is what gives you that wide, tapered look from the front and thick stripes of muscle running down your back.

Cables keep tension on your lats through the whole range of an exercise instead of just at the point where a barbell or dumbbell feels heaviest. You can also change the pulley height and angle to shift where the resistance hits hardest, something you can’t do with a fixed bar. Many cable lat exercises let you train one arm at a time too, so you can fix a side-to-side imbalance that a two-handed pulldown or pull-up would hide.

I’m covering the 7 best cable lat exercises below, with the benefits and exact steps for each one. After that, I built a cable-only lat workout you can run start to finish, plus a look at lat anatomy and the questions I get asked most about training this muscle. For cable exercises across your whole back, not just the lats, see our cable back exercises roundup.

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Your trapezius isn’t one muscle doing one job. The upper fibers run from the base of your skull down to your collarbone and shoulder blade, the middle fibers pull your shoulder blades together across your upper back, and the lower fibers run all the way down to your mid-back and pull your shoulder blades down and in. Most lifters only train the upper third with a shrug and call it a day, which is why so many people have traps that look thick from behind but do nothing to support the shoulder blade during a press or a pull.

Cables are one of the best tools for fixing that. A barbell or dumbbell shrug only loads your traps straight up and down, but a cable stack lets you pull from behind you, above you, or out to the side, and it keeps tension on the muscle through the entire range instead of just at the top of the rep. That matters a lot for the middle and lower traps, since both respond best to pulling the shoulder blade through a full range rather than just shrugging it up. Cables also tend to be easier on your lower back and grip than heavy barbell pulls, since the load path is fixed and you’re not fighting to keep a bar balanced.

Here are the 7 cable trap exercises I use most, covering all three regions of the muscle. I’ll give you the benefits of each one, exactly how to perform it, and a demo video, plus a sample cable-only trap workout and a rundown of trap anatomy at the end.

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Your calf is really two muscles stacked on top of each other, the gastrocnemius and the soleus, and both of them have a reputation for being stubborn. Some of that is genetics you can’t do much about, but much of it comes down to lifters training calves the same lazy way every session, a few sets on whatever machine happens to be free, with no real plan for tension or progression. A cable machine fixes the tension problem better than almost anything else in the gym.

A dumbbell or a standing calf raise machine goes slack for a split second at the top of the rep, right where you’d want the most squeeze. A cable doesn’t. It pulls on your calf through the entire range, from the deepest part of the stretch at the bottom to full lockout at the top, and you can set it up standing, single leg, bent over, or hands-free depending on what your gym has and what you’re chasing that day. It’s also one of the easier tools to use when the standing calf raise machine is taken, since almost every cable stack in the building can be turned into a low pulley in about ten seconds.

Below are the 5 cable calf exercises I’d actually put in a program, the benefits and step-by-step setup for each, a sample cable-only calf session, a quick anatomy rundown, and answers to the questions I get most about training calves with cables. For more ways to hit your lower body on a cable stack, see our full cable leg exercises roundup.

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The quadriceps are the biggest muscle group on the front of your thigh, and they’re the muscle doing most of the work every time you squat, lunge, step up, or walk up a flight of stairs. A cable machine isn’t the first tool most lifters reach for when they train quads. The barbell squat and the leg machines at your gym usually get that job. But a cable stack has one thing neither of those gives you: constant tension. The resistance pulls on your leg through the entire range of motion, from the bottom of a squat to the top of a lockout, instead of going slack at the point where a barbell or a machine would let up.

That constant tension changes how your quads experience a set. A cable can also load your leg from an angle a barbell can’t reach, like pulling you forward into a deeper squat or resisting your knee as it locks out on a single leg. That makes cable training a genuinely useful addition to a quad routine on its own, well beyond something to fall back on when the squat rack is busy. It’s also one of the friendlier ways to train quads if your knees or lower back need a break from carrying a bar, since you’re not loading your spine the way you would with a back squat. You can push a set close to failure on a cable without worrying about bailing out from under a loaded bar, which matters more than people give it credit for once the reps get hard.

I picked the 6 cable exercises below because each one trains your quads through a real, useful range of motion. You’ll get the benefits, the step-by-step setup, and a demo video for every exercise, plus a sample cable-only quad workout, a quick anatomy rundown, and answers to the questions I get most about training quads with cables. For more ways to hit your legs on a cable stack, see our full cable leg exercises roundup.

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The stiff leg deadlift trains your hamstrings from a dead stop on the floor, with your knees staying close to straight for the entire rep. You set up like a conventional deadlift, but instead of driving hard through your hips out of the bottom, you focus on the stretch you feel on the way down. The bar travels from the floor to your hip, and your knee angle barely changes the whole time. That near-locked knee position is what separates it from a regular deadlift, and it’s why the stiff leg deadlift builds so much hamstring size for 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps at a time.

People mix this up with the Romanian deadlift a lot, but they’re not the same lift. A Romanian deadlift starts from the top with the bar already in your hands, and you lower it to about knee height or a little below before you reverse the rep, with a soft bend in your knees the whole way. A stiff leg deadlift starts from a dead stop on the floor every single rep, keeps your knees straighter than an RDL, and gives your hamstrings a deeper stretch at the bottom because of that extra range. That deeper stretch is also what makes the stiff leg deadlift harder on your lower back, since you’re pulling from the floor with almost no knee bend to help share the load.

You might want an alternative for a few reasons. If your lower back tends to round or ache pulling from the floor, that dead-stop start with straight knees is exactly the part that bites you. Not every gym has a bar free, and if you train at home you’re probably working with dumbbells or bands instead. Or your hamstrings have just stopped responding to straight-leg pulls from the floor and you need a new angle to keep growing. I picked the 8 alternatives below for how well they recreate that same floor-to-hip hamstring stretch, how much safer they are on your lower back, and what equipment they need. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The belt squat, also called the hip belt squat, loads a squat pattern from your hips instead of your spine. You stand on two elevated platforms, clip a harness around your hips, and squat against a load that hangs below you from a weight stack, a loaded pin, or plates on a trolley. Because the resistance pulls straight down through your hips and legs, none of it travels through your spine the way a barbell does on your back. That makes it one of the only squat variations that trains your quads and glutes hard without loading your spine at all.

Most commercial gyms don’t have a belt squat machine. It’s specialty equipment, and you’ll mostly find one in powerlifting gyms, physical therapy clinics, or facilities built for serious strength athletes. If you’re rehabbing a back injury, recovering from a disc issue, or just came off a heavy squat block and your spine needs a break, you still need a way to train your legs hard. Coaches lean on the belt squat for exactly that reason, and if your gym doesn’t have one, you need substitutes that get you as close to that spine-sparing training effect as possible.

I picked these 8 alternatives based on how much load they take off your spine, how well they train the same quad-and-glute-dominant pattern the belt squat trains, and what equipment they actually need. A few of these, like the hack squat and leg press, come close to matching the belt squat’s spine-unloaded profile. Others still put weight on your back or in your hands, so I’ll tell you exactly where each one lands and who it’s best for.

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The Russian twist is a seated rotational exercise for your obliques. You sit on the floor with your knees bent, lean your torso back to about 45 degrees, and rotate side to side while holding a plate, dumbbell, or medicine ball, tapping it to the floor beside your hip on each side. That rotation under a leaned-back, flexed spine is what makes it such a direct oblique builder, and it’s why so many ab circuits close with 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps per side.

You might want a swap for a few reasons. The seated, rounded-back position loads your lumbar spine while it’s flexed and rotating at the same time, and that combination is exactly what physical therapists commonly tell people with a sensitive low back to avoid. Not everyone has a plate or medicine ball handy, and if you train at a commercial gym during a busy hour, floor space for a seated twist can be hard to find. Or maybe you’ve been doing Russian twists for months and your obliques have stopped responding, so you want a standing, loaded, or anti-rotation option to change the stimulus.

Here are the 8 Russian twist alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they train the obliques through rotation or resist rotation, how easy they are on the low back, and what equipment they need. Some of these are standing, loaded options that let you add real resistance, and others are bodyweight exercises you can do on any floor with no gear at all. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The sit-up is about as classic as ab exercises get. You lie on your back with your knees bent, anchor your feet somehow, and curl your whole torso up until your chest gets close to your knees. It trains your rectus abdominis through a long range of motion, and it pulls in your hip flexors too, since bringing your torso all the way up past 30 or so degrees is more hip flexion than pure ab work.

A full sit-up isn’t always kind to your body. Curling your spine through that big a range under load, especially for high reps, can aggravate your lower back, and the deeper you go past the halfway point, the more your hip flexors take over from your abs. If you do the version with your hands laced behind your head, it’s easy to yank on your neck every rep instead of using your abs to pull you up. The sit-up still has its place, but plenty of lifters need a substitute that trains the same muscles without beating up their spine or neck.

You might also want a sit-up alternative if you don’t have anything to anchor your feet under, if you want to isolate your abs without your hip flexors doing half the work, or if you’ve been doing sit-ups for months and need a new angle to keep progressing. I picked the 8 below for how well they train your abs through a real range of motion, how easy they are on your lower back and neck, and what equipment they need. A few are near-identical swaps you could drop into the same spot in your program, and a couple are far gentler options if your back is the whole reason you’re here. I’ll tell you when to use each one, exactly how to do it, and what it needs equipment-wise so you can pick based on what your gym or home setup actually has.

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The pec deck is a seated machine that isolates your chest through a fixed arc. You sit upright, brace your back against the pad, and bring your arms together in front of you against resistance, either pressing your forearms into pads (the classic pec deck) or pulling handles together (the butterfly version). The seat and arm position lock you into one path, so your chest does the work without your shoulders or triceps needing to stabilize anything. That’s what makes it such a good isolation exercise for 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at a time.

You might need an alternative for a few reasons. Not every gym has a pec deck, and almost no home gym does, so if you train outside a commercial gym you probably don’t have access to one at all. The fixed arc is also built for an average frame, and if your shoulders are wider or narrower than that average, the pad position can dig into your shoulder joint instead of your chest. Or maybe the machine’s just occupied every time you want to use it, and you need something else to hit the same muscle without waiting around.

Here are the 8 pec deck alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they isolate the chest through a full range of motion, how safe they are on the shoulders, and what equipment they need. Some of these are close cable equivalents you could run in the exact same program slot, and others trade some of that isolation for a heavier compound option or a true no-equipment stand-in. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The glute ham raise, or GHR, is one of the toughest hamstring exercises there is. You kneel on a GHD or glute-ham bench with your ankles locked under a pad, then lower your torso toward the floor by controlling your knees as they straighten, and pull yourself back up using your hamstrings and glutes. It’s rare in that it trains your hamstrings as a knee flexor and a hip extensor in the same rep, which is why it builds so much posterior chain strength for 2 to 3 sets of 4 to 8 reps at a time.

Most commercial gyms don’t have a GHD or a glute-ham bench at all, so you might not have the equipment to do one in the first place. Even if you do, the GHR is brutally hard. Most lifters can’t manage a single strict bodyweight rep without a partner holding their ankles or a band assisting them, which makes it a rough starting point if you’re new to the exercise or coming back from time off. Your knees and lower back can also take a beating if you push volume before you’ve built up the strength to control the descent.

I picked the 8 alternatives below because they hit your hamstrings and glutes through a similar range without needing a GHD, and most of them scale a lot easier than the GHR does. A few are close matches you could run in the exact same program slot, and others are heavier compound lifts you can lean on to build the same strength from a different angle. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The reverse fly, also called a rear delt fly, is a horizontal-abduction isolation exercise for your posterior deltoids, the small muscles that cap the back of your shoulder. You can do it bent over with a pair of dumbbells, backward on a pec deck machine, or standing at a cable stack, and in every version you’re moving your arms out and back in a wide arc while your elbows stay mostly straight. It’s one of the few exercises that isolates the rear delts almost on their own, which matters because most pressing and pulling work barely touches them, for 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps at a time.

You might need a substitute for a few reasons. The rear delt machine is often the busiest piece of equipment in a commercial gym’s shoulder section, and you’re not waiting around for it. Bent-over dumbbell reverse flies can aggravate a cranky lower back if you’re hinging for high reps, and the light weights involved make it tempting to swing the dumbbells instead of actually working the muscle. Or maybe you’ve noticed your rear delts lagging behind your front and side delts and you want a couple of angles that hit them harder than your current rotation does.

Here are the 8 reverse fly alternatives I’d reach for, picked for how directly they isolate the rear delts, how easy they are on the shoulder joint and lower back, and what equipment they actually need. A few of these are near-identical swaps for whichever version of the reverse fly you normally run, and a couple pull double duty as upper back builders when you want more from the same set. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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