The Best Home Gym Cable Attachments

Most home gym setups begin with a power rack, barbell, and weight plates. We can do a lot with this simple setup, but at some point, a workout enthusiast will look for more exercise options.

It can make your head spin thinking of all the options available on the market for gym equipment. But the decision becomes easier to make once you consider the limited space in your garage gym. With the investment made in their power rack, many will decide to include a cable pulley system into their fitness equipment.

Home Gym Cable Pulley Options

You can purchase a separate cable machine or cable crossover machine or you can set up a lat pulley system or cable machine directly to your rack. The power cage you have will determine the options you have available when making this decision.

When setting up your home gym pulley system, you will need cable pulley attachments to perform the exercises. This creates a lot of confusion about what you will need and which products are the best for your setup.

DIY Cable Pulley Attachment

Before we discuss the best attachments for your pulley system, if your wallet is near empty, you can make several attachments for minimal cost. Here are three options:

Hold the end of the cable: Holding the end of the cable with one hand will allow you to perform unilateral bicep curls, tricep pushdowns, and lat pulldowns.

Attach a Chain: With a chain, you can mimic a rope by hooking the center link to the carabiner. To make it slightly more comfortable, wrap the ends of the chain with duct tape where your hands trip the chain.

Slide a Rope Through: Using a thick rope, you can slide it through the carabiner and grab both ends. You will want to maintain tension on the rope at all times to prevent it from slipping. Here is a video explaining how to make a DIY rope attachment.

Now that we have discussed the DIY attachments, let’s talk about what attachments you will need.

The High Pulley and Low Pulley System

The good news is that most attachments will have uses for both the high pulley and low pulley setup. So don’t overly concern yourself with which attachments work for each. In almost all cases, the cable grips and bars that you buy will work for a pulley at any angle.

However, if you are using the cable machine for a specialized purchase, you may need a few select pieces of equipment that only work for one. For example, if you want to build up your glutes, then purchase ankle straps. While you could use these with a lat pulley, most likely we will only use them at the bottom of your power rack or cable machine.

Multi Purpose Cable Pulley Attachments

Thanks to the garage gym revolution, manufacturers understand the need for customers to save space and money. For this reason, they have developed some pretty innovative pieces of fitness equipment that can allow for multiple uses when performing cable exercises.

The Flex Wheeler Back Widow by CE tooling is one such example. With 15 unique positions and two different grips, it offers many uses in the gym. You can perform narrow grip, wide grip, pronated grip, supinated grip, and neutral grip positions.

Besides the many positions, we can also use the Back Widow as a landmine attachment, deadlift jack, and push up bar. This can save thousands of dollars in the long run.

Another example is the Spud Inc Lat Saw. Spud specifically made the Lat Saw for a cable pulley or machine pulley setup. It allows you to use a variety of different grips going from narrow to wide at one inch increments. For the bodybuilder looking to shape their back, this is a must-have tool.

Single Purpose Cable Pulley Attachments

While the multi purpose pulley attachments can save you time and money, they have a cost. Often these multi use attachments are heavier than single use options. On a lat pulldown, the heavier attachment will require you to add a weight plate to help counterbalance the weight. It may also smack you in the head if we remove all the weight from the pulley station.

You might also like the “feel” of a single use cable attachment better than the multi use. Many use a cable pulley machine to encourage a greater mind / muscle connection. If you feel at all uncomfortable when performing the exercise, you may not get the muscle activation you hope for.

For example, using a cable rope for tricep pushdown allows for a feeling of greater tension on the muscle compared to the lat saw with short fuse dynamite sticks.

The Best Workout Pulley Attachments

To maximize the potential of your home gym, for most, it is best to go for both single use and multi use options.

Considering all the single purpose options on the market, it will be expensive and hard to organize all that you need to purchase.

The multi-use purpose attachments will help cover most ground, but at some point you will want a few individual pieces to cover the missing pieces of your cable attachment arsenal.

Top 10 Home Gym Cable Pulley Attachments

Below is a list of our top recommendations for your DIY cable pulley setup or cable machine. While this is not perfect for everybody, we believe these will help you get the most out of your home gym.

Flex Wheeler Back Widow: This is at the top of the list because of its versatility in more than just a cable attachment. With its heavy duty build, you can max out the weight stack and have no problem with it for years to come.

Tricep Rope: There just isn’t a feeling quite the same as tricep rope pushdowns and hope hammer curls. These will also be your best option for exercises such as face pulls where you need a light attachment to keep the tension on the shoulders, traps, and back.

Lat Pulldown Bar: The lat pulldown bar will give you a wide range of options for pronated grip and supinated grip lat pulldowns, triceps pushdowns, and bicep curls. While this is a single use attachment, the lat bar can replace a straight bar typically used for tricep and bicep exercises.

Spud Inc Lat Saw: This is the attachment that will allow you to maximize your single use attachments… turning them into multi use attachments.

Deluxe Cable Handles: We understand that a set of cable handles is the best option for bicep training. However, because these cables work with the Lat Saw, you can use them for two arm back training. By rotating from pronated to supinated, you will encourage greater activation of the latissimus dorsi, which leads to wider and thicker development.

Short Fuse Dynamite Sticks: These grips will help you build forearm and grip strength. We can use them with or without the lat saw.

Cannonball Grips: Cannonball grips are another way to build up your forearm and grip strength, but this time in a way that is more natural to your hand. Cannonball grips feel like a baseball that you can rotate from pronated to supinated as you pull through the exercise.

Lower Body Home Gym Cable Pulley Attachments

Most home gym owners do not have the space nor the desire to fill up their space with leg strength training equipment. So if you are going to set up a low pulley, spend some money on attachments that help you build up your legs.

Hamstringer: Spud inc has developed a fantastic product to work your hamstrings. You can use the hamstringer to perform cable standing, lying, and seated hamstring curls. You can also use the hamstringer for glute kickbacks and straight leg glute extensions.

Ankle Strap: The primary benefit of having an ankle strap cable attachment is to work the adductor and abductor muscles. These rarely worked muscles help to provide stability in the lower body and protect you from injury. .

Belt Squat: Perhaps not traditionally thought of as a pulley attachment, we can use the belt squat belt as a powerful lower body cable exercise. Elevating yourself higher than the body by standing on two plyo boxes will allow you to get a full range of motion. Trust us when we say that this is an amazing exercise that uses your lower pulley attachment.

Pulling it All Together

Now that you understand how to maximize your home gym lat pulley system, it is time to decide on what you will start with. Once you have established your budget, pick your home gym cable pulley attachments you will use most frequently and get started with those right away. After a while, you may find that you need more options to keep stimulating the muscle in new ways. From there, you can pick up the rest of the list.