How to do the Butterfly

Steps

1. Sit on the machine with your back flat on the pad.
2. Take hold of the handles. Tip: Your upper arms should be positioned parallel to the floor; adjust the machine accordingly. This will be your starting position.
3. Push the handles together slowly as you squeeze your chest in the middle. Breathe out during this part of the motion and hold the contraction for a second.
4. Return back to the starting position slowly as you inhale until your chest muscles are fully stretched.
5. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the butterfly to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.

Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.

Where the instructions come from

The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.