How to do the One-Arm High-Pulley Cable Side Bends

Steps

1. Connect a standard handle to a tower. Move cable to highest pulley position.
2. Stand with side to cable. With one hand, reach up and grab handle with underhand grip.
3. Pull down cable until elbow touches your side and the handle is by your shoulder.
4. Position feet hip-width apart. Place free hand on hip to help gauge pivot point.
5. Keep arm in static position. Contract oblique to bring the weight down in a side crunch.
6. Once you reach maximum contraction, slowly release the weight to the starting position. The weight stack should never be unloaded in a resting position. The aim is constant tension during the set.
7. Repeat to failure.
8. Then, reposition and repeat the same series of movements on the opposite side.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the one-arm high-pulley cable side bends 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.