Cable Y Raise: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Variations

A cable Y raise is a shoulder exercise where you stand between two low pulleys, cross the cables in front of you and raise both arms up and out until your body makes a Y shape. It mainly trains the side delts, with the rear delts and lower traps working hard as the arms climb overhead. Because the cables pull from low and across your body, your shoulders are loaded from the very first centimetre, which is where a dumbbell raise gives you almost nothing. If you want wider-looking shoulders and a healthier upper back from one move, it earns its place.

What is a cable Y raise?

Think of it as a lateral raise that keeps going. Instead of lifting straight out to the side and stopping at shoulder height, your arms travel slightly forward of your body (roughly 20 to 30 degrees, in what physios call the scapular plane) and finish above your head at about a 45-degree angle from your torso. That arm path suits most shoulders better than a raise directly out to the side, and it lets the shoulder blades rotate freely.

Most people do it on a cable crossover station using both low pulleys at once, crossing the cables so the left handle sits in the right hand. You can also do one arm at a time on a single stack, which is how I'd teach it first.

How to set up

You need two low pulleys, ideally set at or just below ankle height, and two single D-handles or no handles at all (some people prefer to hold the cable ball stopper between their fingers). A double-stack machine like the ones in our best cable machine guide is ideal; a single-stack tower works fine for the one-arm version.

1. Set both pulleys to the lowest notch and pick a light weight, around 2.5kg to 5kg per side to start.
2. Grab the cables crossed. Left pulley in your right hand, right pulley in your left hand, then step back to the centre so the cables form an X just in front of your thighs.
3. Stand tall with a soft bend in your knees, feet about hip-width apart. A small forward lean from the hips (10 to 15 degrees) is fine and helps some people keep the traps quiet.
4. Start with your hands crossed in front of your hips, elbows slightly bent and thumbs pointing up or slightly out.

How to do a cable Y raise

1. Set your shoulders first. Gently pull your shoulder blades down and slightly back, as if tucking them into your back pockets. Don't pinch them hard; you just want them away from your ears.
2. Raise up and out. Sweep both arms up and away from each other, travelling slightly in front of your body rather than straight out to the side. Keep the slight elbow bend locked in place.
3. Lead with the back of your hand, with thumbs pointing up towards the ceiling. Thumbs-down raises feel strong, but internal rotation shifts the work towards the upper traps and rear delts (EMG study of lateral raise variations in bodybuilders), and it's an uncomfortable position for many shoulders once the arm goes overhead.
4. Finish in a Y. Stop when your arms are around 45 degrees from your head, at or just above head height. Your ribs should stay down; if your lower back arches to get there, you've gone too far or too heavy.
5. Lower slowly. Take two to three seconds to return to the crossed start position. The cables want to snap your hands back together, and resisting that is half the exercise.

Muscles worked

• Lateral (side) deltoids. The main target, especially through the first two-thirds of the rep, where the cable's angle gives them steady tension.
• Posterior (rear) deltoids. They assist throughout, more so on the single-arm version where the cable comes from across the body.
• Lower trapezius. As your arms rise overhead, the lower traps help rotate and tilt the shoulder blades into position. This is the muscle most people neglect, and it's one reason the Y raise gets used in shoulder rehab as well as bodybuilding.
• Upper traps and serratus anterior. Both have to work for any overhead arm movement. The aim isn't to switch the upper traps off, just to stop them taking over.

A systematic review of scapular muscle EMG found that standing exercises tend to recruit the upper traps relatively more, especially between 60 and 120 degrees of arm elevation, while prone flexion (essentially a face-down Y) gave one of the better ratios for the lower traps (review of periscapular muscle ratios). That tells you two practical things. The standing cable version is a strong shoulder builder but you'll need to work at keeping the shrug out of it, and the prone dumbbell Y raise below is the better choice if the lower traps are your priority.

Why it suits side delt growth

Resistance profile is the whole argument for doing this on a cable. A dumbbell's load always pulls straight down, so at the bottom of a raise, with your arm by your side, the side delts barely have to work; the hard part only arrives near shoulder height. A low pulley crossed to the opposite side pulls your hand across and down from the start, so the muscle is loaded in its lengthened position and stays loaded through most of the rep.

The Y path adds a little more range than a standard cable lateral raise and brings the lower traps into play at the top. I wouldn't claim it out-builds a lateral raise for pure side delt size; the evidence just isn't there. What it does well is train the side delts alongside the muscles that keep your shoulder blades moving properly, which matters if you press overhead a lot.

Common mistakes

Going too heavy. This is the big one. Once the stack gets heavy, your torso starts to rock, your elbows bend more and more, and the weight goes up on momentum. Pick a load you can lower slowly for every rep.

Shrugging the weight up. If your shoulders rise towards your ears early in the rep, your upper traps are running the show. Reset your shoulder blades down before each rep, lighten the load and think about reaching out rather than up.

Arching the lower back. People chase the last few degrees of height by leaning back and flaring the ribs. Squeeze your glutes lightly and keep your ribs stacked over your pelvis; finishing a little lower with a neutral spine is better.

Raising straight out to the side. Pulling your arms back in line with your body (the frontal plane) makes the top of the rep cramped for many people. Let the arms travel a touch forward of your body.

Rushing the lowering phase. Letting the cables yank your hands back together throws away the tension that made the cable worth using.

Variations

Single-arm cable Y raise. Stand side-on to a single low pulley and hold the handle in the far hand, so the cable runs across your body. Do all your reps on one side, then switch. It's easier to learn than the crossed two-arm version and lets you fix a weaker side. Your free hand can hold the machine for balance, which helps keep your torso still.

Prone dumbbell Y raise. Lie face down on a bench set to around 30 to 45 degrees, holding light dumbbells (1kg to 4kg is plenty for most people). Raise your arms into a Y with thumbs up. Lying face down takes away the urge to swing and, going by the EMG review above, gives the lower traps a better share of the work. A pair of adjustable dumbbells makes small jumps in load much easier.

Band Y raise. Stand on the middle of a long loop band, cross the ends in front of you and raise into a Y. The band gets harder as it stretches, so the top of the rep is the toughest part, which is the opposite of the cable's profile. It's a good home or warm-up option; see our pick of the best resistance bands in the UK.

Sets and reps

• Shoulder size: 3 to 4 sets of 12 to 20 reps, once or twice a week, resting 60 to 90 seconds. Put it after your heavier pressing.
• Warm-up or shoulder health: 2 sets of 15 light reps before upper-body sessions, with a slow lowering phase.
• Learning the move: start with the single-arm version, 2 to 3 sets of 12 per side, until you can keep your shoulders down throughout.

Add weight only when you can hit the top of your rep range with a controlled two-second lowering on every rep. On most stacks that means the smallest available jump, and sometimes it means adding reps for a few weeks instead. The NHS recommends strength work for all major muscle groups on at least two days a week, and the Y raise slots easily into a shoulder or upper-body day alongside the moves in our shoulder exercises guide.

Kit for cable Y raises

You need two low pulleys at the same height for the crossed version, which rules out most single-stack home machines and points you towards a crossover station. If you're shopping, our review of the RIP X cable crossover machine covers a 180kg double-stack unit with a pull-up bar that handles Y raises, flyes and rows in one footprint.

Check RIP X price on Amazon

For more options across budgets, including compact single-stack towers that still handle the one-arm version, see our best cable machine roundup, or browse every exercise guide in our workouts hub.

Recommended reads

• Cable lateral raise: how to do it and why it beats dumbbells
• The best cable machines in the UK
• RIP X cable crossover machine review
• Rear delt exercises for stronger, healthier shoulders
• Trap exercises for a stronger upper back