Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates loved the seated cable row so much he nearly got thrown out of a gym because of it.
“I never went back there again,” Yates recalled. “I said, ‘Maybe you need to get some more weight for your machines.’”
As Yates tells it, the seated cable row was one of his favorite back exercises, but one that flew under the radar by happy accident. Decades later, he’s still going to bat for it.
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Dorian Yates on the Seated Cable Row
Yates spun this tale on social media on Sep. 3, 2024: Once upon a time, a fledgling Yates visited an American bodybuilding gym in the early ’90s.
“I’m in my off-season, probably at the peak of my strength levels that year, so I’m here going all out training back,” said “the Shadow.”
He was called into the manager’s office at the gym after a particularly vicious back workout. Expecting praise, Yates was instead met with a scolding.
“Laid before me on the table were a whole bunch of weight pins that were all bent,” Yates continued. “I’d been putting two 20-kilogram plates on the seated cable row stack.”
Pause. What? If you’re unfamiliar with this technique, you can add additional weight to a “fully stacked” cable station by inserting an additional pin and hanging a weight plate on it. It’s a popular technique utilized by the world’s strongest bodybuilders.
You can see the Internet’s favorite bodybuilder, Sam Sulek, doing so during a set of triceps pushdowns here:
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Yates never returned to that gym. Still, he had a lot more to say about the seated cable row, one of his favorite back exercises that, by a happy accident, never made it into his famous Blood & Guts training videos.
“In 1996 when Blood & Guts was filmed, my back workout that day just happened to include the Hammer Strength row instead of the seated cable row,” Yates noted.
Yates employed the seated cable row on a regular basis, using both narrow and wide grips to target different portions of his back anatomy. “I did this exercise throughout my entire career,” he finished.
How To Master the Seated Cable Row
Yates’ reputation in bodybuilding was built upon his massive, mountainous back. All that muscle came from using exercises like the seated cable row — if you want to follow in The Shadow’s footsteps, here’s how to perform the seated cable row without enraging the staff at your local gym:
Fix the attachment of your choosing to the carabiner. If you want to emphasize your lats, grab a triangular or close-grip handle. To target your upper back, get a long bar and use a wide, overhand row grip.
Scoot back so your legs are almost straight and your torso is erect. The plate stack should pull taut with your arms and shoulders pulled forward.
Brace your core and row the handle toward your torso by pulling your shoulders back first, then following through by driving your elbows behind you.
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Featured Image: @thedorianyates / Instagram
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