reckonerCable glute kickback
Ankle strap on a low pulley, stand tall, drive the leg back. One leg and one joint moving, which makes it the most isolated hip extension in the library and, by some distance, the most oversold.
Squeeze the glute, don't arch the back.
- Pattern
- Hip isolation
- Trains
- Glutes
- Kit
- Cable
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2.5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Some technique
- Recovery cost
- Low
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set the pulley low and strap one ankle
Cable at the bottom of the tower, strap around the ankle of the working leg. Stand far enough forward that there is tension on the cable before you start.
Hold the frame and stand tall
One hand on the machine for balance. Stand up straight with a slight bend in the standing knee. Do not lean forward onto the frame: it is there to stop you wobbling, not to hold you up.
Drive the leg back from the hip
Push the working leg back and squeeze the glute, keeping the knee close to straight. Stop when the hip stops. That is the cue on your wrist and it is the whole range.
Come back under control
Let the cable bring the leg forward slowly rather than letting the stack pull it. Reset your standing position before the next rep if it has drifted.
What goes wrong
Arching the back to get more range
Once your hip stops extending, the only way to get the foot further back is to arch. That is the second half of the cue on your wrist and it is the whole discipline of this movement: the range you have at the hip is the range, and everything past it belongs to your spine.
Swinging the leg
With the load on your ankle and a long lever, momentum will do the rep for you and the glute will barely notice. If the plates clatter at either end, the weight is doing something you are not.
Expecting it to isolate the glute
Fifteen resistance-trained men were measured through a standing hip extension kickback and a leg press at loads they could manage six times. Gluteus maximus activity was 77.0 per cent of maximum on the kickback against 88.0 on the leg press, which was not a significant difference, while biceps femoris was 106.5 per cent against 30.61. A single-joint hip extension is not a glute switch. Your hamstring extends the hip too.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 15 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 10 at 15 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 at 15 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 at 15 kg | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 at 15 kg | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 at 15 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 14 at 15 kg | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Should I do these instead of squats or hip thrusts?
No, and there is no measurement that supports it. The same movement produced no more gluteus maximus activity than a leg press did1, and a review of twelve training studies found single-joint and multi-joint work grew the muscle about equally whether they were done alone or together2. This is a reasonable addition and a poor replacement.
Why does it feel so much harder than the number suggests?
Because the lever is your whole leg. The stack is pulling at your ankle and the muscle doing the work is at your hip, so the pin you need here has almost nothing to do with the plates you use anywhere else. Compare this movement against itself and against nothing else.
Can a block be built around this lift?
No. It is accessory work and Reckoner will not anchor a block on it. It carries no restrictions in the library, so it is one of the hip extensions that stays available when the heavy ones come out.
Similar movements
Reckoner has no other movement in this swap group.
Sources
- Stien, Saeterbakken and Andersen, Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 2021. Electromyographic Comparison of Five Lower-Limb Muscles between Single- and Multi-Joint Exercises among Trained Men fifteen resistance-trained men at six repetition maximum loads, a standing hip extension kickback producing gluteus maximus activity of 77.0 per cent of maximum against the leg press at 88.0 per cent with no significant difference, and biceps femoris activity of 106.5 against 30.6 per cent
- Krause Neto and colleagues, Frontiers in Physiology, 2025. The impact of resistance training on gluteus maximus hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis twelve studies and 318 participants, a moderate pooled effect on gluteus maximus size, with single-joint and multi-joint exercises effective alone and in combination