The cable Y raise is a two-arm raise from low pulleys. You stand facing the cable stack with a handle in each hand, lift both arms up and out until they make a Y with your body, and lower them under control. Both coaches cited here cross the cables, so each hand holds the handle from the opposite side.
Nobody is credited with inventing or naming it; the name describes the shape the arms make at the top. Brolic lists it as Y Raise (Cable), with “Cable Y Raise” as an alias, and logs it as a two-arm exercise in reps.
Muscles worked
Brolic tags the upper back as the primary muscle group and the posterior deltoids as secondary. The coaches put the shoulder first. Alex Bush of Physique Development says it targets the medial delt, worked in its shortened range, and the mid trap, and warns that you should expect to feel the upper back: “this is training that mid-trap, so don’t be alarmed”. James Harrison calls it a shoulder exercise and has you contract the shoulders hard at the top. Nothing here settles which part of the deltoid does most.
No study measures the cable version. A PubMed search for “Y raise” on October 7, 2026 found three studies, all of the physiotherapy Y-raise done prone or with a band and measuring the trapezius and serratus anterior; “cable Y raise” returned nothing. So nothing establishes what the standing cable raise does to the shoulder or upper back, or that it builds more muscle than a lateral raise or a dumbbell Y raise.
Set the cables
Set both pulleys low. Bush puts them “between the knee and the ankle”; Harrison sets the pulley at the bottom of the column.
Take each handle in the opposite hand. Harrison uses D handles “in the opposite hands”; Bush has Sue cross the cables before she steps back. Neither coach shows an uncrossed version, so this guide does not cover one.
Step back from the stack. Harrison walks out of the cable. Bush explains why the distance matters: the further back you stand, the more the raise loads the top, shortened position of the medial delt; the closer you stand to being over the cable, the more the tension sits in the middle and lengthened part of the range and drops off at the top. Pick a distance and keep it.
Find the top position before you load it. Bush’s test, unloaded: raise your hands out in front and as high as they go without extending at the back or raising the shoulders, spine neutral and core contracted, then rotate the arms slightly outward. That is the end position to copy. At the top, the cable should run straight through the shoulder, elbow and wrist.
Raise
Start with the arms in front, not hanging. Bush keeps the arms slightly out in front at the bottom and warns that letting them drop removes tension from the medial delt once you have stepped back. Harrison starts with the handles at about shoulder height, palms facing the floor and hands just outside the shoulders.
Raise into the Y and squeeze. Harrison’s cues are chest up, shoulders in a fixed position and the body still and in line, then raise and contract the shoulders hard at the top, where the arms are wide, “hence the name Y raise”. Bush keeps the core contracted the whole way.
Lower only as far as the tension holds. Harrison controls the weight down to between chin and shoulder height, keeps the torso from moving and calls the rep strict.
Against the lateral raise and the prone Y raise
| Cable Y raise | Dumbbell lateral raise | Prone Y raise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body | Standing, facing low pulleys, stepped back | Standing | Chest on an incline bench |
| Arms finish | Overhead, in a Y | Out to the sides, about shoulder height | In a Y, in line with the body |
| What loads the top | Where you stand, per Bush | Gravity | Gravity |
With a dumbbell, gravity decides where the raise is hardest; with the cable, Bush says, where you stand decides, and standing further back makes the top the hardest part. No trial compares these for muscle growth; the table separates set-ups, it does not rank them.
Logging
Brolic logs Y Raise (Cable) as a two-arm exercise in reps. Each hand pulls its own stack, so enter the weight on one stack, and note the station, the pulley height and roughly how far back you stood: those change how hard the top of the raise is, and stack labels only mean something within one machine. The free workout log has room for those notes, and the weekly set tally shows what your shoulders and upper back already get.
Common questions
How far back should I stand? Neither coach gives a distance. Bush’s rule is that further back loads the top of the raise and closer loads the bottom and middle; stand where the arms start slightly in front of you with tension still on the cable, and keep that spot from set to set.
I feel it in my upper back, or my shoulders hurt at the top. Bush says upper-back work is expected: the mid trap works with the medial delt. If the shoulders rise or the back arches to get the arms higher, you have gone past the top position his test sets; take the arms a little lower. If it still hurts, stop; pain is not a cue.
Sources and method
- Physique Development: How To Cable Y-Raise — Alex Bush, with Sue Bush demonstrating: the muscles targeted, pulley height, crossed cables, standing distance, the top-position test and the cable through the joints; automatic captions.
- James Harrison: Cable Y Raise — the bottom pulley, opposite hands, the shoulder-height start, chest up, the squeeze at the top and the lowering to chin height; automatic captions.
- Hwang and Jeon (2025), Hwang and Jeon (2026) and Song, Kim and Lee (2026) — the three studies a PubMed search for “Y raise” returned; physiotherapy Y-raises, none with a cable.
- Brolic catalog — name, alias, logging mode and muscle tags.
Pulley heights and the standing distance are starting points from the demonstrations cited, not optima from a trial. The medial-delt and mid-trap emphasis is the coaches’ account, not a measurement.
